by Jake Elwood
The skimmer touched down on the grass. They were rising from their seats as the hatches slid open. Vendredi and Samedi scrambled out the port side. Cassie slung the crater gun over her shoulder and followed Lagan out the starboard hatch.
The first robot appeared immediately, a tall silver shape that glided across the grass, steel arms rising to point the muzzles of lasers at them.
Vendredi started firing her zap gun, sparks lashing out across the lawn. Zap guns, formidable weapons at close range, were neither accurate nor effective at a distance. Vendredi wasted a dozen shots and achieved nothing.
Cassie drew her pistol, switched to explosive rail gun rounds, and lifted the gun, taking careful aim. Before she could fire the robot lurched to one side, then toppled forward. Beside her, Lagan lowered the particle beam gun. "That's one," he said, and slung the gun across his back. "Let's go."
He broke into a run, and Cassie followed. She could see Vendredi, looking flustered, holstering her pistol and breaking into a run as well. No more robots appeared as they neared the house. All four of them paused a dozen meters or so from the building, Cassie and Samedi unslinging their crater guns. Twin beams of light lashed out, and colorful siding exploded from the side of the house.
The walls were tougher than they looked. It took half a dozen shots for Cassie to make a hole big enough for a person to jump through. She dropped the crater gun on the lawn and hurried forward. The sisters were moving off at an angle, heading for the hole Samedi had made.
Lagan went through the hole ahead of her, agile as a monkey. Cassie scrambled over bits of rubble, grabbed the edges of the hole, and hauled herself up. The room beyond was as ornate as the outside, with a ceiling of swirled plaster and a floor that looked like marble. The windows looked like authentic, ancient glass, but they hadn't cracked as the wall fell apart around them. Cassie stepped onto the faux marble floor, staggered a bit on shattered bits of wall, and followed Lagan deeper into the house.
Somewhere in the distance metal crashed against wood. Someone screamed, and a thud made the floor tremble under Cassie's feet. A click in her ear was followed by Vendredi's voice. "We just took down the second robot."
Cassie touched her ear to activate her com. "Good work. Stay sharp. There could be more."
"Yes, mother."
Cassie and Lagan passed through a dining room with a gleaming oak table that could have sat fifty people. She glanced briefly into a kitchen, then followed Lagan into a library. The room had to be three times her height, the walls covered in leather-bound books that likely no one had opened since Armstrong had acquired them. A couple of plinths held places of honor in the middle of the room. A tiny silver hammer sat on one plinth, protected by a little transparent dome. The other plinth had a little oval painting of a young woman in archaic clothes. If the tiny painting was as old as it looked, it was priceless.
"We'll grab these on the way out," she said. "Let's go."
Lagan nodded and preceded her into the next room. She was in the main hall of the mansion, and she saw Samedi in a doorway a hundred paces away across a parquet floor. The woman grabbed for the pistol on her hip, then relaxed as she recognized Cassie. She moved deeper into the room and vanished from sight.
Half a dozen plinths stood among potted plants and ornate pillars. The plinths on the far side of the room had already been pillaged. Vendredi and Samedi had cut off the tops of the pedestals to get the loot out, leaving the domes intact.
The three closer plinths were intact, each with a different work of art. Cassie didn't care in the slightest about any of it, but she had to go through the motions. She moved toward the closest dome, which covered a jeweled necklace that glittered in the low light. As she drew her pistol and switched it to laser she glanced back, just a reflexive motion based on a deeply-ingrained distrust of her fellow thieves.
Lagan was levelling his zap gun at her.
Cassie dove to the side as he fired, and tingles ran up and down her left leg. It wasn’t enough to slow her down, and she scrambled for the nearest cover, the plinth with the necklace. It was a bit too narrow, her knees and shoulders sticking out on either side, but it stopped his next shot. She leaned out and shot him in the chest, then swore as his tunic absorbed the laser beam without damage.
Two more zap shots sizzled against the plinth, and she tasted ozone and the sour tang of her own fear. She ignored the shots as best she could, working the controls on her pistol. Lagan came toward her, edging to one side to get a better angle, and she threw herself sideways. She hit the floor and rolled, head toward him so she made the smallest target possible. She fired steel rail gun rounds as she rolled, and he was caught in the open, shooting wildly as he dove for cover. He vanished into the library, and Cassie sprang to her feet, running to a pillar that was wide enough to hide her.
The seconds ticked past. She panted for breath, scanning the hall for movement. Vendredi and Samedi were nowhere in sight. There was no sound from Lagan. The particle beam gun lay in the middle of the parquet floor, blood all around it. There was no way to tell how badly he was hurt. He would be waiting in the library, hoping she would be foolish enough to come after her. In a game like this, whoever moved first usually lost.
Well, she didn't have to finish him off to get what she wanted. Avoidance would suit her just as well as victory. She edged backward, keeping an eye on the library door, taking quick glances behind her to choose her path. When a couple of pillars stood between her and the library she turned and trotted toward the back of the house.
Light flickered to one side, and she paused. A doorway to her right led to a staircase, more faux marble with ornate handrails on either side. The doorway shimmered as she looked at it. It was protected by a force field. If her guesses were correct, the Ancients artifact was more valuable than the rest of Armstrong's collection put together. It would be in the most protected part of the house.
A quick glance showed no sign of Lagan behind her. She switched her pistol to laser and played the beam across the walls and ceiling around the doorway. Plaster crumbled away, smoke curled out, and water sprayed from a cut pipe. A shower of sparks from the ceiling had her briefly excited, but the force field remained intact. There would be no easy shortcuts.
Wishing she'd kept the crater gun, she switched her pistol to explosive rounds and fired into the wall at the edge of the doorway. Chunks of plaster erupted outward, and she swore as she saw the exposed outline of a titanium frame. The mechanism of the force field was well protected.
The wall around it, though, was not as strong. There was some kind of laser-resistant shielding, but it shattered easily enough when she fired another explosive round into the wall. She used the laser to cut away the debris, then pulled the biggest chunks out of the gap and fired into the side wall of the staircase.
Alarms blared, and Vendredi said "What the hell?" over the radio.
"You might want to make a run for it with what you've got," Cassie told her. "Just leave me a flitter." She cut the connection and returned her attention to the wall.
Several laser cuts and two more explosive rounds opened enough of a hole that she was able to squirm her way around the side of the force field generator, through two walls, over the battered remains of the railing and onto the stairs. The force field sparked, and she turned to see Lagan on the far side, a zap gun in his hand. His left arm hung limp, and blood caked his left side.
"Holy shit," Vendredi cried. "There are turrets coming up out of the lawn. We're in some serious shit here."
At the same instant, a panel slid open on the wall behind Lagan and a slender silver robot emerged. Laser beams slashed out, cutting the outer lining of Lagan's tunic and exposing the mesh underneath. He spun, dropped the robot with a shot from his pistol, then dove aside as two more robots came out of the wall.
Cassie ran up the stairs, her heart thumping. Things were spinning out of control. Roger would be monitoring her, unless the mansion security included a jammer. "Rog," she panted. "You ther
e?"
"I'm here, Cassie."
There was nothing he could do just then, but she felt her fear level ease back from the edge of panic.
She drew her zap gun with her left hand as she ran. The upstairs lights came on as she reached the top step, and one of the silvery robots appeared. It seemed to know that the invaders had laser protection, because the crimson beam lanced toward her face. She twisted her head to one side and fired with both guns. The explosive round missed and blasted apart the wall behind the robot. The spark from the zap gun caught the thing dead center and knocked it flat on its back.
The staircase ended at a long corridor with doors on either side. She stepped over the fallen robot, then whirled at a faint hum from behind her.
The air at the top of the staircase flickered. There was another force field in place.
Well, it'll keep Lagan off my back. I'll worry about getting out of here later. She started forward, then swore as she spotted another force field blocking the corridor ahead of her. She was trapped.
Then small panels slid open on either side of the corridor, and mini gun turrets came out.
"Oh, crap!" She took aim at the turret on her right, fired the zap gun, and watched sparks fly from the machinery. She sprang to the left, pressing herself flat against the wall as the turret on that side opened up. Particle beam blasts raked the floor, sending bits of tile flying. The gun couldn’t quite come to bear on her, giving her plenty of time to aim. Her hand was shaking, though, and it took three shots to disable the turret.
It would only get worse, she realized. When she reached whatever room held the Ancients artifact, it was going to be a slaughterhouse. Fighting a rising panic, she said, "Roger, I need ideas!"
"Shooting the defenses one at a time hardly seems efficient," the AI said.
"Ideas, not lectures." She stepped away from the wall, keeping a wary eye on the second turret. A gun barrel swiveled toward her, but nothing came from the muzzle but a shower of sparks.
"You are essentially in a duel with the building's AI," Roger said. "I suggest cutting every wire and cable you can find. Cripple the house, blind it, paralyze it. It can't trap what it can't see, and it can't shoot you with unpowered guns."
Switching her pistol back to laser, she cut into the wall beside her. A second cut a handspan from the first brought long chunks of plaster spilling onto the floor. She could see into the room beyond, a guest bedroom set up like a luxury hotel room. A pair of pipes ran through the gap in the wall. She used her laser to slice through them completely, then started on the opposite wall.
Not until she burned a channel through the floor did the force fields on either end of the corridor suddenly go out. She moved on, a gun in each hand, hoping she was ready for whatever came next.
There was a wide sitting room at the end of the corridor, with a fireplace and several leather chairs. A pair of robots glided out from either side of the fireplace and tried to get her in a crossfire. She fried one, the other retreated through a doorway, and she sliced the wall to ribbons with her laser. Huge chunks of plaster fell away, a severed cable sprayed sparks across the floor, and the robot was revealed. Something was on fire in one metal hip, wisps of smoke curling out from the hip joint. Its weapons were pointed several meters to her left, and it seemed unable to turn. She dropped it with a shot from the zap gun.
Only then did she notice the turrets that extended from half a dozen places in the walls and ceiling. She shrank back into the corridor. One ceiling turret had a direct line of fire on her, and she dropped her own pistol, putting both hands on the zap gun. The turret fired, agony lanced through her shoulder, and she squeezed the trigger.
The turret spun around once and went inert.
Cassie sighed, then winced as fresh waves of pain radiated out from her left shoulder. She set the zap gun down and reached back with her right hand to explore the wound. Her body armor, designed for laser and stun shots, had absorbed much of the energy from the charged particle blast. There was damage to muscle and probably to bone, but it wasn't going to kill her right away.
"I've analyzed the room ahead of you," said Roger, "and I've located a likely nexus for the building's AI functions."
"Well, it's not much help unless I can see it from here," she grumbled.
"It's the fireplace," Roger said. "I estimate a thirty-two-percent likelihood that there are significant computer components located within the chimney structure. It's central and heavily protected, with connections to floor and ceiling. It would make a good nexus."
The fireplace was barely visible from her position. She could just see one edge of the chimney. "I don't know…."
"You can get a better angle on the chimney if you disable the camera just beyond the turret," Roger said.
Cassie squinted. At ceiling height on the far wall, she could just make out a discoloration in the plaster. She grabbed her pistol, took careful aim, and fired a laser beam through the off-color rectangle. Then she dropped flat, wriggled forward, and poked her head around the corner.
There were three turrets in view. None of them responded to her.
Taking a deep breath, Cassie aimed her pistol at the chimney and fired. She was able to burn away a little bit of mortar from between the stones, but the laser had little effect. She switched to exploding rail rounds and fired again.
Stone chips erupted across the room, every turret in sight whirred into life, and Cassie scrambled back as energy blasts sprayed the walls around her. She cowered in the middle of the corridor for twenty or thirty seconds until the barrage ended.
When her pulse returned to normal she looked at the blast holes in the walls. The turrets were firing blind, she realized. The AI was able to infer that she was in the corridor, but it couldn't tell exactly where she was.
She took careful aim with the zap gun at a turret, and fired. A thin, weak spark shot out, and she squirmed back as all three turrets opened fire. The zap gun was empty, and she tossed it aside. Well, with the turrets firing blind she could get by without it.
She would have liked to spend an hour or so finding just the right place to shoot from, but she was all too aware that very little remained of her eighteen minutes. She crawled forward, keeping to the base of one wall, and found a spot where she had a clear view of the chimney but could only see one turret. Lying flat, exposing as little of herself as possible to the turret's field of fire, she took aim, held the pistol steady, and started to fire.
All three turrets fired, a near miss peppered her with hot bits of floor tile, and she fought the urge to squeeze her eyes shut. Again and again she fired, and a line of heat traced across her cheek as another shot came much too close.
When the magazine was empty she squirmed back and reloaded. She only had one spare clip of exploding rounds. If the chimney was nothing but a chimney she was in trouble. Shrugging grimly, she wriggled back to her spot and resumed firing.
One explosion after another rang out. Chunks of brick tumbled from the chimney and bounced across the floor. She fired into the resulting hole, and the chimney caught and magnified the explosions until the entire brick column split.
Cassie squeezed the trigger and heard a sad click from the pistol. She was out of explosive rounds. She wormed backward, wondering what she would do next. Only when she was back out of range did she notice the silence.
The turrets had stopped.
CHAPTER 18
Cassie rose to her feet. Caution and careful planning had always been the foundations of her career as a thief, but there simply wasn't time to take proper care. She stepped forward and peered around the corner.
The chimney was a shattered mess. Rock and plaster and chunks of electronic components littered the floor. All three turrets pointed in her general direction, but none of them moved.
Taking a deep breath, Cassie took a step forward, then another.
"I can see three separate cameras now," Roger said. "Judging by your continued survival, I would say the AI has been disabled. Is t
hat your target, beside the credenza to your right?"
Cassie wasn't sure what a credenza was, but there was a shelf inset in a nook on the back wall. She'd been expecting some real difficulty getting past the protective dome, but a stray shot from a turret had hit this dome and turned it opaque with white cracks. She smashed the dome apart with the butt of her pistol and brushed the chunks aside.
The artifact was as big as her head. That was the first thing she noticed, and it filled her with dismay. Somehow she'd been assuming it would be another bauble no bigger than her fist. She was lucky, she realized, that it wasn't even bigger. She pictured herself facing a chunk of Ancients tech the size of a flitter, and wondering how she would get it out of the building.
The artifact was like a cube with rounded edges and corners. Threadlike lines covered much of the exterior, thickening in places to wormlike dimensions. There were indentations, some circular, some square, that made her think of data ports. The thing looked like an alien computer, she decided. Not that she had the foggiest idea. It could have been anything from a wallet to a food processor.
More to the point, it was too big to fit in her shoulder bag. She had to holster her pistol and take the artifact in both hands. It was brutally heavy. Grunting with effort, she lumbered across the room, hoping there were no more robots. She was in no condition to deal with more surprises.
A low doorway in the corner of the room gave access to a narrow circular stairway leading down. She took the staircase, the wound in her shoulder screaming at her with every step. Down and down she went, with no idea where she was heading. There was no exit to the ground floor. She kept descending, cursing the architect who had designed the house, cursing Lagan, cursing Armstrong, cursing Tarkin for being such a jerk that she missed the real traitor.
At last the staircase ended. There was no time to drop the artifact and draw her gun. She wasn't sure her cramped fingers would even hold a weapon, so she blundered down a short hallway, hoping against hope that she would encounter no fresh danger.