by J. N. Chaney
Dash looked back. “Any preferences?”
Amy answered, “Why not right up the middle?”
Dash nodded back at her and carried on, walking into the middle passage. They traversed it for about a dozen meters—with Leira recording their route on a data-pad—then it opened up again, into another massive space.
It seemed to be a hangar. The smashed and battered remains of several small craft were piled in the forward bulkhead, flung there when the ship slammed into the planet. Most of them were essentially the same—small and simple in construction, resembling the drones that had attacked the Forge before the Golden Harbinger had shown up, but larger and clearly meant to be crewed. Dash took them for scout or light utility craft. That made them distinct from a larger, more imposing ship that sported what must be a cluster of weapons—likely an attack ship or battle-craft of some sort.
Dash looked at Conover. “Anything?”
Conover looked around, then up. He narrowed his eyes at something above them, then pointed.
“Those big cables up there, the ones kind of hanging in those harnesses. There’s a little power flowing through them. I’d say they either lead to wherever this ship generated its power, like their main engineering, or to part of their engineering systems, anyway.”
Dash frowned at that. “There’s power?”
“Yeah. Not much, though. Just a trickle.”
“Still,” Leira said, “the fact that there’s any power at all, after all this time—it’s surprising.”
“And worrying,” Viktor said.
Conover had turned his attention to the rest of their surroundings, especially the smashed ships piled against the bulkhead. “These are similar to that Gold—" He stopped, flicked his eyes to Ragsdale, then said, “That gold-colored drone we found that one time, at that big space station. Modular components and distributed functions.” He took a few steps, then added, “And I think there’s…um…”
Dash resisted any comment, as he wanted his frustration kept hidden. Ragsdale seemed to have his attention roving around the compartment, not fixed on anything in particular, but Dash suspected the man was taking in every word. How much longer could they really keep this up?
“It’s okay,” he said to Conover. “Just go ahead.”
“Yes, don’t mind me,” Ragsdale said. “I’m not listening to your secrets.”
Dash gave him a wry smile, then turned back to Conover, who said, “You know that dark-colored metal our employers told us about? I think there’s a fair amount of it in those wrecked ships.”
Dash nodded. Not that there had been much doubt, but the modular systems and the presence of Dark Metal clinched it—this was, indeed, a wrecked Golden ship. Now, all they had to do was figure out how to recover what they wanted from it.
He turned back toward the forward exit from the hangar. A wrecked scout-ship partly blocked it, but there was enough of a gap that they could work their way through. Just as he started that way, Amy said, “Is there something moving up there?”
She was looking up into the gloom among the hanging cables high above them.
“I don’t see anything,” Leira said.
Viktor and Conover nodded and muttered that they didn’t either. Neither did Dash, but he switched his view to thermal and, sure enough, there was something up there radiating heat. He opened his mouth to say so—
—when whatever it was suddenly burst into motion, dropping straight toward them.
Dash caught a brief glimpse of glaring eyes, scales, and leathery wings—then a chorus of ear-scraping shrieks filled the still air. He didn’t hesitate lifting the carbine, aiming, and firing in one smooth motion. He double tapped, snapping off two slugs, then braced himself to leap aside. More shots cracked and echoed against the looming walls as someone else fired. Whatever it was kept plunging straight down. Dash flung himself sideways, just as something crashed into a heap where he’d been standing. A second creature hit the wreckage of a scout-ship a few meters away, bounced once, then rolled onto the deck and went still.
The last of the echoes, both shrieks and slug-shots, faded into silence.
Conover gave Amy a broad smile. “Good shooting!”
She lowered her carbine. Dash scanned the roof of the compartment again, but saw no more of whatever those had been, so he lowered his weapon as well.
Viktor poked the barrel of his own carbine at the creature Dash had shot. They could see now that it was sinuous and serpentine, like a flying lizard. It didn’t react to being prodded, so Viktor looked back at Ragsdale. “Do you recognize these?”
“I think so. I don’t recall the name, but I remember reports from a survey crew about encountering things like this. They seem to stick to the rocky hills and highlands around the desert. They’re rare, but aggressive.”
Viktor pulled his weapon away from the carcass. “I’d call dropping from the ceiling on us aggressive, yes.”
“They must have been nesting in here or something,” Amy said, still peering upward.
Dash switched back to night vision. “Okay, so now we’ve got something else to watch out for besides a guy with big feet—local wildlife. Eyes open, everyone. Even the birds here can bite.”
He started forward again, leading them deeper into the ship.
The corridor continued for about a dozen meters before opening into another huge, dark space. Dash wondered if it was coincidence, or if that distance meant something to the Golden. It would be good to know, he thought. After all, the more he knew about them, the better—know your enemy, and all that.
He heard Ragsdale speaking to Leira and Viktor about something, so he used the opportunity to mutter into his comm, “Sentinel, is there anything significant about the number twelve, or a distance of twelve meters, to the Golden?”
“None that is recorded, at least in any database I can access. There is actually little known about the Golden as a species.”
“So we’ll get to know them as we unfold their lingering presence.”
“That is essentially correct, yes.”
“Understood. Not sure I’m looking forward to it,” Dash said.
“There is little to like about the Golden,” Sentinel said.
“Couldn’t agree more.”
Dash turned, waved, then pointed ahead. “We’re going in. How about this time, Viktor, you watch to the right, Leira to the left, Amy up, Conover behind us? I’ll watch ahead. Ragsdale, you look everywhere.”
A crescent of tense, tired faces gave their agreement, and Dash turned and started into the yawning space ahead.
As soon as he did, several panels nearby began to softly glow. One of them emitted a shrill chirp. At the same time, the lights came on.
Dash looked around. “Okay, I did not expect this, that’s for sure.”
11
The compartment loomed over them, it’s immense size now almost expected. They could see the true dimensions around them, because of the softly glowing strips of light. It was still far short of actual daylight, but bright enough to illuminate even the most distant corner of the cavernous area. Again, Dash wondered about the Golden and their eyesight, as the lights were dim. Too low for humans, but brighter than many animals needed.
“You could fit the Slipwing in here,” Leira said.
Viktor nodded. “With a fair bit of room to spare.”
For a moment, they all just looked around, taking in what the light had revealed. Rows of clear cylinders stretched into the distance, each two metres across and rising to the ceiling high above. Dash approached the nearest and peered inside. Except for a few centimeters of a dark fluid, the cylinder was empty. So were the rest, at least as far as Dash could see.
Amy moved to a metallic trough, dragging a finger along one edge in thought. When she came to a series of mounted cylinders and tanks on the wall, she stopped, tapped the glassine material, and then gave the surface a firm rap with her knuckles. “These troughs seem to connect everything,” she said. “Like something was me
ant to flow along them.”
Conover gave a quick nod. “I think you’re right, Amy. Some fluid is meant to flow along these troughs, probably from those tanks, into these cylinders, and maybe back again. It’s not a closed system, not entirely, but there’s definitely a circle.”
“I wonder why,” Viktor said, carbine resting on his shoulder. “What sort of liquid? And what was it for?”
“I’ve got something over here,” Ragsdale called out.
Viktor’s weapon fell back to the ready as they moved to join him.
“Someone’s definitely been here,” the Security Chief went on, pointing at the deck.
Again there were footprints, this time recorded by some thick, resinous fluid, sap-like and cloying. But these prints weren’t oversized. They were made by booted feet a couple sizes smaller than his own.
“More over here,” Viktor said, pointing and moving to the nearest length of trough. A single work glove, torn and ruined, lay across it, along with a utility blade, similar to one Dash kept aboard the Slipwing. A water bottle sat on the floor beneath the trough.
“This is all human gear,” Dash said, then winced. Ragsdale, though, had moved a few meters away, apparently trying to follow where the footprints led. “It’s definitely not Golden or Unseen.”
Leira picked up the utility blade. “Dull, too,” she said, examining it closely. “And the edge is chipped. This was used to cut something pretty tough.”
“This has to be someone from Port Hannah,” Conover said.
Viktor, though, shook his head. “Only if there’s another way in here. We saw no other footprints coming in the way we did.”
“So, what, somebody’s living in here?” Conover asked.
Dash looked around. “This just gets weirder and weirder. Maybe Golden, definitely monsters, and now, in all likelihood, a human.”
His eyes fell on another section of trough. This one held a powdery substance. Dash took the broken knife from Leira and used it to dig at and stir whatever the powder was. It seemed to bridge the properties of a dry powder and a liquid, flowing viscously back into place when he removed the blade. His actions had exposed some colored flecks and flakes that had been buried in the powder. Peering closely at them, it struck him they were bits of vegetable matter, like fragments of leaves and petals.
“If the Golden are machines, what do they need with plants?”
“Maybe they’re used to clean the air,” Leira said. “Like some of the ones on the Forge.”
“I can’t follow those tracks very far,” Ragsdale said, rejoining them. “A few meters that way is as far I can see them, then they just fade out.”
“There’s a corridor over there,” Amy said.
They all looked that way, except for Viktor, who was examining the strange substance. He’d put on a glove and was now poking it, scooping some up, and rubbing it between his fingers. “It feels like a liquid, but it’s flowing and dripping.”
“Uh, Viktor,” Dash said, “not sure it’s a good idea to risk getting whatever that is on you.”
Viktor ignored him though, studying the goo, or powder—or both—coating his gloved fingers. “This looks like the Dark Metal you brought aboard the Forge, Dash. I wonder if it can exist in a liquid state? Because this sure as hell looks like it to me.”
Dash winced. Ragsdale would have heard that. He turned to find the Security Chief looking at him.
Part of him wanted to just say, To hell with it, and spill basically everything to Ragsdale. But he couldn’t. He had no idea what the repercussions of revealing too much to these people might be—maybe nothing, but maybe also catastrophic. This wouldn’t be like taking Kai and the other monks of the Order of the Unseen into their confidence; the monks were already well aware of the ancient conflict, even if their understanding of the details might have been less than perfect. But these people had no idea about any of it, and Dash just couldn’t foresee what telling them might do. Worse, he’d come to both respect and like them, and genuinely didn’t want to see them come to any harm.
Damn it, he thought, these are the very people we’re trying to save, ideally without ever finding out they had been saved, or from what.
“Sorry we have to use code words,” he said to Ragsdale. “I know they might sound strange, but—”
“Do I hear something?” Leira asked.
Dash glanced at her, trying to communicate, It’s okay, I’ve got this, I don’t need help with Ragsdale—but then he also froze. He heard something, too. It was a faint but distinct creaking sound with a brash edge to it, like metal scraping.
“That way,” Conover said, pointing at a corridor, though not the one to which the footprints might have led. “Something’s coming from that way, getting closer.”
Dash motioned for everyone to spread out and find cover, but before any of them could move, something burst into the chamber and began pulsing energy blasts at them.
One searing bolt hit Conover’s backpack, flinging him around and backward. The rest snapped through the air around them, striking the clear cylinders and the bulkhead with dazzling flashes and ear-splitting cracks.
Dash dove for cover behind a cylinder. It was obviously made of something far tougher than even reinforced glass, the bolts not leaving a mark. Dash raised his carbine and peered around the cylinder, but on the side opposite where the bolts were flying, choosing to acquire a target before firing wildly with his off hand.
It was a machine, clearly—a cylindrical robot, standing just over a meter tall, rising on six metal wheels. Its top, which mounted a pair of snub-barreled weapons that were the source of the energy pulses, could spin like a turret. A wicked-looking claw extended from further down its body, probably designed as a manipulator, but looking deadly as a close-combat weapon.
He raised the carbine. If this didn’t work, he’d switch to the plasma pistol.
“No!” Conover shouted. “Don’t destroy it!”
Dash glanced back and saw Conover kneeling, shucking his smouldering backpack. But his eyes were on Dash and the others. “It’s working tech! We need to take it…uh, well, alive.”
More bolts snapped past them, detonating with deafening bangs behind them.
“And how do you propose we do that?” Amy called, from where she lay behind a pedestal supporting one of the troughs.
Dash frowned in resignation. Take it alive…
But his frown began to fade, because he saw a path to victory. When he fought the Harbinger, he’d been able to win by using unexpected moves—things that went against solid tactical doctrine.
Things only a human would do.
In that case, he’d used the Archetype like he’d taken it into a barroom brawl, a sort of fighting the Harbinger hadn’t anticipated.
Barroom brawl. Okay, then.
“Keep it busy!” he shouted, slinging his carbine, then rising to a crouch and heading off to his right. Behind him, Leira and the others opened fire, but their shots missed, pinging off the deck or against the bulkhead behind the robot. It, in turn, shot back, its twin weapons slewing back and forth as it tried to hunt down targets. That gave Dash a chance to work himself behind more troughs and cylinders, until he was squatting just a few meters away from it.
He waited for its weapons to turn as far away from him as they could, when they were firing at Ragsdale. Then he took a deep breath and launched himself into a sprint.
The turret immediately began to spin, rotating to face him. The difference between him making it and getting caught square-on by a pair of energy bolts at point-blank range literally came down to a fraction of a second.
Dash slammed into the robot, low down, in a body tackle. He put all of his weight behind it. Now watch the damned thing weigh a ton and me just bounce off, he thought as he crashed into it—and it was heavy, but not heavy enough. Twin energy blasts erupted upward as it tilted, slamming into the ceiling with showers of sparks. Then it toppled over, Dash landing on top of it with an oof.
Gritting
his teeth, he heaved himself up, grabbed the carbine, and reversed it, then he slammed it butt first into a cluster of crystalline facets on the turret, between the twin guns. He did it again. And again. He tried to stay out of the field of fire of the robot’s weapons, but this close it was almost impossible. Any second, they’d fire. And then there was that terrifying claw—
He butt smashed it again. The whole assembly popped out of place. Dash slammed it once more, knocking it free.
The robot went dead still and silent.
Gasping, Dash stood, reversed the carbine again, and aimed it into the machine’s inner workings, which were exposed where the sensor cluster had come free.
Conover rushed up. “Dash, wait!”
“You may have noticed,” Dash said, eyes fixed on the fallen machine, “that I did tackle it, instead of just blowing it to bits.” He lowered the carbine. “So I’m not likely to blow it to bits now, right?”
“Not unless it’s still alive,” Amy said, bending over to look at the exposed innards. “Modules again.” She looked up at Conover. “Just like that drone we took apart. That means it should still be fully operational. It hasn’t taken anywhere near enough damage to put it out of action completely.”
Dash raised the carbine again.
“I think Dash has managed to render it deaf, dumb, and blind,” Viktor said, nudging the broken sensor cluster with his toe. “With no input at all, it seems to have gone into a suspended state of some sort.”
“Better than turning berserk and shooting the whole place up,” Leira said.
“That means it’s less sophisticated than the drone,” Conover said. “It didn’t have any obvious sensors at all.”
“Makes sense, though,” Amy replied. “You probably wouldn’t use your best tech for some security bot.”