by J. N. Chaney
“From who?” Ragsdale asked.
Dash pointed at the bot. “When I touched that, it was like touching the viewscreen back in the last compartment. I got connected, somehow, to this ship. It’s like the Meld, the way I’m connected to the Archetype. Or similar, anyway.” Dash sighed. “I’m not explaining this with enough clarity, but it’s not yet entirely clear to me. Sentinel, do you know what’s going on?”
“It would appear that the augmentation you underwent when you became the Messenger, which is what allowed you to initiate the Meld in the first place, is also sensitive to Golden technology,” Sentinel said. “This is likely a by-product of the use of Dark Metal, which bridges both technologies.”
“So I can connect with Golden tech, as well as Unseen? There are considerable advantages if—if the Meld is more than a one-way path, with a single vehicle.”
“You can, and the Meld is more than a simple connection,” Sentinel replied. “Being Melded implies a degree of intimate, two-way interchange between your consciousness and Golden technology. I would caution that the risk of such interchange is unknown, and potentially considerable. The Golden are particularly adept at manipulating machines, remember, and the Meld is not only an act. It is a thing, and a state of being, as well.”
“And you just said they somehow don’t really distinguish between inorganic machines and organic ones.” Amy gestured to the bot then to Dash’s head.
“You think they might be able to hack my brain?” Dash asked.
“Their full capabilities are unknown,” Sentinel replied. “It is, however, a possibility.”
“I think that would probably be very, very bad,” Ragsdale said.
Dash shot him a look. “I agree, and no, I’m not happy with the results.” He looked at the derelict bot. “Sentinel, is there any way of preventing that? Similar to—I don’t know, like the Slipwing has security protocols, firewalls, things of that nature, to keep out hackers and viruses and the like. If we can implement that, I can be even more assertive when I’m connected to Golden tech.”
“If you are willing to allow me to have a greater degree of access to your mental processes, then I can offer a degree of protection, yes.”
“Do you really want more access to Dash’s mental processes?” Leira asked, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “That might make you more like him, Sentinel.”
“That is a risk I am willing to take.”
Leira chuckled. Dash raised a brow at her, then she winced. Even Ragsdale smiled—and, for the first time since Dash had gotten to know the man, it actually seemed genuine.
“Do whatever you have to do, Sentinel,” Dash said. “Because I think I’m going to have to make more use of the Meld with the Golden’s tech.”
Ragsdale’s smile vanished. “Something we should know about, Dash?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that, right before I passed out, I caught what seemed to be that bot’s last words. Call it a parting shot of sorts.”
“I gather they weren’t something touching and heartfelt.”
“No. It seemed to have been a broadcast—like it was shouting something before it died.”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to like this,” Viktor said. “What did it call out?”
“A warning. Like an alarm. And a call to arms for…something.”
Ragsdale’s mouth pressed into a thin, pale line. “Something? As in, something specific?”
“Yeah. It was calling out for something specific. Telling it to gather and converge—as in, converge on the intruders, which I assume means us.”
“What was it calling for?”
“Something called Dreadfoot.”
A moment of silence followed, the word hanging in the air, before Conover finally spoke.
“What is Dreadfoot?”
“I don’t know,” Dash said, “but I’m afraid we’re going to find out one way or another.”
A thin, piercing shriek, like tearing metal, sliced through the air.
Dash picked up his carbine. It looked serviceable, except for its butt, which had been crushed and broken. It would make aiming from the shoulder tough, but it wouldn’t stop him from firing from the hip.
The shrill, ear-scraping sound rose again, then faded.
“What was that?” Viktor asked, eyes rounded with concern.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s whatever the Dreadfoot is,” Dash replied.
“That’s coming from behind us,” Ragsdale said as he stole a glance over his shoulder.
“Which means,” Amy said, “if we want to go back—”
She didn’t finish. But she didn’t have to. They all knew what she meant.
They would fight their way out, or they wouldn’t leave at all.
14
The racket of shrieking metal grew, echoing flatly off the decks and bulkheads. They hurried on, leaving the bridge and the compartments adjoining it, pushing deeper into the ship. The commotion behind them faded, but when they stopped for a breather, it slowly began to swell again as whatever was making it—the Dreadfoot, maybe?—relentlessly closed in on them.
“Dash,” Leira said, as they stopped for another break, “you do realize that this is going to be a dead end?”
Amy, leaning on her knees, nodded. “Kind of has to be, right? Heading downslope like this, getting deeper under the ground.”
“I think we get it, yeah,” Dash said, then he looked at Leira. “Have you seen anywhere that we can make a stand against—”
Metal screeched, like something in pain.
“—whatever that is?”
Since they’d left the bridge, they’d traversed three essentially empty compartments and the blank corridors connecting them. There’d been no usable cover or obstacles, and no other branching ways they could have tried. Leira finally shook her head.
“There’s also the matter of ammo,” Ragsdale said. “One more sustained firefight, and we’re going to be on our last rounds.”
Dash pulled the plasma pistol he carried. “Leira and I have these, too. They can incinerate quite a bit.”
“Yeah, including us,” Ragsdale replied. “You used that thing against the lockjaws, remember? The ranges in here are pretty tight for what’s basically a portable artillery piece.”
Dash nodded. “I know. Which is why we need to find somewhere better than this to make our stand.” He gestured around them at the narrow and relatively short corridor.
Ragsdale nodded back, just as that eerie cacophony of tortured metal rose again, and they carried on.
They hit another corner. More lights sputtered, flickering into inconstant life. Dash looked at Conover, who nodded. “More than just power, like before. This ship is starting to communicate, at least with itself.”
Dash turned back to the corner. Burgeoning signs of mechanical life had been appearing around them, and with increasing frequency, since they left the bridge. Dash wondered if it had something to do with the bizarre Meld he seemed to have with the wreck. They needed to investigate that, learn more about it. It could be important, and not just for this little expedition, but for the whole struggle against the Golden. It could also be something dangerous, perhaps even catastrophic. But they couldn’t spare the time, not while something much more likely to be lethal was now closing in on them from behind.
Before them, there was nothing but more corridor, ending in a severe turn some distance ahead. That far corner offered good concealment for someone shooting down the length of the passageway, Dash thought. The only trouble was that only one of them, maybe two, could shoot around it at the same time. Still, it might be all they had.
“Messenger,” Sentinel said, “I have a suggestion.”
“I’m listening.”
“Assuming you are unable to extract yourselves from the crashed Golden ship the same way you entered it, you will need an alternative. Might I suggest repositioning the Archetype to the crash site, and then determining the feasibility of digging down to you?”
A dozen things that could go terribly wrong with that flashed through his mind, from the Archetype’s presence awakening some dormant, but powerful, defensive system on the wreck, to them trying to scramble up the crumbling slope of some freshly dug pit excavated by the big mech.
“Good idea,” he said. “Do it.” He glanced back at Ragsdale. “Your people will have something to talk about when the Archetype lifts off.”
They reached the next corner. Per their agreed procedure, they all stopped, Ragsdale and Amy kneeling and watching behind them; Dash, with Leira in close support, checking out whatever was ahead; and Viktor and Conover ready to go either direction.
There was more corridor, about five meters of it, followed by a closed and sealed set of doors.
And that was all.
Dash looked at Leira. “You were right. A dead-end.”
Dash scowled at the doors, while the metallic racket behind them closed in.
He saw nothing to indicate how the doors would open. Nothing obvious, anyway; there were no switches, levers, control panels, or anything else that said, open these doors using this. He finally yanked free one of the tools strapped to the outside of his pack—a short, stout prybar—and tried jamming it into the seam between the doors.
Nothing happened. Of course. The idea he could pry open a set of sealed doors aboard a Golden spaceship was the most poignant of fantasies.
A burst of noise shattered the air in the form of a metallic shriek. This time, it came from the doors, which parted slightly. It was just enough to slip in the prybar.
Dash turned to Leira, wide-eyed. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Neither did I, but I’m happy to see it, tough guy,” she said, brows lifted. “Let’s get them open and get our asses through them.”
Dash wrenched at the prybar. The doors scraped open about five centimeters, and that was it. Even with Leira’s help, they wouldn’t budge any further. He suspected they wanted to open, probably had been stuck trying to do so, but damage from the crash, or age, or both had jammed them in place.
Conover and Viktor crowded in behind them. “We can help,” Conover said.
“No,” Dash said, voice cracking with authority. “The prybar’s not big enough, and I’m pretty sure we don’t have enough muscle to crank these doors any further anyway.” He looked at Conover. “I need your brains, not your muscles. We need to find some way to open these doors. So use your eyes, and…I don’t know, find a control system or something we can work on. Something tech, not brute force.”
Conover gave a quick nod and started scanning around them. Viktor, meanwhile, cast a critical eye over the doors. “That prybar isn’t long enough to get them open more than another few centimeters, anyway. If we could find something longer, with more leverage…”
“Well, if you’d like to go back and look for something, be my guest,” Ragsdale called from the corner, where he and Amy had taken up firing positions.
Another shriek of metal answered him. It sounded much closer, now.
Dash looked at Conover. “Do you see anything? Anything at all?”
“Yeah, right there,” Conover said, jabbing a finger at the bulkhead to the right of the doors. “There’s some kind of node right there, with power flowing through it.” He traced his finger across the bulkhead. “Some of it’s flowing from there, to these doors.”
“I don’t see any sort of access,” Leira said. “No panel we can open.”
Dash leaned in close and studied the wall. “Wait. Yeah, right here, there’s a seam.”
“Really?” Leira bent even closer. “Wow, that’s barely visible.”
Dash hefted the prybar. “Let’s see if we can get this open.”
“You know, any time you guys could open that door would be swell,” Amy called. “Whatever’s coming, that—Dead Foot? Dreadfall? Anyway, whatever it is, it’s going to be here soon.”
“Any second now,” Ragsdale said, raising his carbine and aiming back down the corridor behind them.
Dash put the flat edge of the prybar against the seam and pushed.
Nothing.
He pulled it back and slammed it against the seam. Then he did it again. And again.
He hadn’t expected much to happen. The bulkhead was Golden tech; it had survived what must have been a colossal impact when the ship crashed, more or less intact. He’d assumed, therefore, that this wouldn’t work, and they’d have to fight whatever was chasing after them.
But the prybar suddenly slid into the wall, opening the seam. Dash exchanged a surprised glance with Leira and Conover, then pried the bar back. The seam spread, the panel covering it folding back. Leira said, “Huh,” and stuck her fingers into the widening gap. As she pulled, the panel folded back even more, letting them peel it away from the bulkhead like a bandage being pulled off a wound.
Dash suddenly found himself holding the panel. It slowly straightened, flattening back out, until it once more seemed like an unyielding metal plate.
Inside he saw a confluence of tubular conduits, with more of those ubiquitous, interchangeable modules stacked among them. Along with Dark Metal, those modules, whatever they were, seemed to be the foundation of Golden tech. For that matter, the bizarre idea that tech could be whatever it needed to be, whenever it needed to be, seemed to be fundamental to Golden tech. It was, indeed, weird—but it was also something to ponder another time.
“I see power and data moving around,” Conover said, studying the space revealed behind the access plate. “But I don’t know what it’s doing, or where it’s going.”
Dash narrowed his eyes at the cryptic devices and conduits. As he did, a shrill squeal tore apart the air.
“It’s now or never,” Ragsdale shouted. “We either go, or we fight.”
Dash shot Leira and Conover a glance. “Get ready to…well, do whatever you need to do.”
“What are you talking about?” Leira asked.
“This.” Dash reached into the opening and touched one of the Golden modules.
Dash stood, blinking in momentary confusion. The transition had been instant, and wrenching, but that had passed into a state somewhere between life and shadow.
It was the Dark Between.
Except it wasn’t just the Dark Between, because it wasn’t empty.
Dash finally gave a mental shrug, his decision simple. As of that moment, he didn’t understand the nuance of a galaxy that had layers and races fighting a war that spanned the depth of time.
He also didn’t need to, though his instincts screamed into the void to know. As for his mind, that simply wasn’t designed or equipped to understand, but the meaning tickled at his edges, like fish touching his legs in a creek—a childhood memory rushing back like a forgotten tide.
But it didn’t matter. What did were the things that Dash could glean from this strange place—or state of being, or whatever it was. Thanks to what was obviously his Meld, or an add-on to his Meld, or even an entirely parallel one, he could see and hear and know things—data and facts and information that were recorded in the tech of the Golden.
“You are not alone here,” Sentinel said.
“I know. I’m not afraid. I can sense you, like a distant echo. There are other things here. The crashed vessel, for one thing.”
The ship wasn’t alive, but aware, and on the cusp of being an intelligence all its own. In that way, it was like Sentinel, or Custodian. It had no distinct identity, though. Or if it did, Dash couldn’t discern it. All he knew was that the ship was aware, and that it extended its awareness through virtually its entire structure—its very substance. The bots they’d encountered were part of that awareness, and so were the Dreadfoot.
The Dreadfoot.
If the ship was a living organism, then the Dreadfoot were its immune system—units intended for a purpose far different than the other bots roaming the darkened remains of an ancient vessel. The Golden bots they’d encountered so far were part of the ship, but they were mere tools. They were i
ntended to carry out a variety of tasks and could reconfigure themselves to do so. Their energy projectors could be weapons, but they could also be tools, for cutting and welding and shaping. Their terrifying claws could rip flesh, but they could also lift and carry and manipulate.
Not the Dreadfoot. The Dreadfoot had a single, devastating purpose; to attack and destroy anything that was the enemy of the ship.
No. That wasn’t quite right, either. They didn’t exist just to destroy.
“They’re also about capturing things,” Dash said, though to no one in particular.
“That is correct,” Sentinel said. “The Golden do not seek to merely destroy sentient and organic life. They seek to exploit it and then destroy what they cannot exploit.”
“That follows. They need things, in order to make things. To twist life to their ultimate end.”
“You asked me to erect defences against incursions into your mind by the Golden. I have done so, configuring them so that you may remain aware of the Meld, without being fully exposed to it.”
“So—wait a minute.” He let his senses roam, though his body believed he was merely looking around. In the Dark Between, there were things to know. “This isn’t purely the Dark Between. It’s an imperfect echo of it.”
“It is better to say that this is a construct, one that represents the Meld—our linkage—in a way that your brain is able to understand, by employing your senses to the utmost of their capabilities.”
“And you think this is my limit, due to my human nature? My organic body?”
“I am simply stating a fact. Your senses are quite limited, by the standards of the Creators and the Golden. But you are the Messenger, and that means you have potential yet undiscovered.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. So what I’m feeling now, and sensing, is an approximation of what the Golden think I can handle. What I can handle, in terms of human-machine interfacing.”