“We’ve got a cargo sled coming. My boys will do the loading,” she said.
“Long as I check it after,” I said.
Treska looked at me. “The kid doesn’t trust us to load. I was flying when you were waiting to be delivered.”
Candace looked at him with annoyance. “Quiet, Treska. I don’t want to fly with anyone dumb enough not to check his own ship’s load.”
Treska grumbled but headed for Sinner’s capacious cargo bay. Harung gave me an unfriendly stare and followed.
I looked at her. “No weapons on my ship. Hope you left your knee-shooter in the port lockup. Explosive decompression can ruin your whole day.”
Candace grinned at me. “Gonna pat me down, Wrik? I’ve got a lot of area to cover, many dangerous curves to hide things.”
Her smile and manner had probably bent men to her wishes all her life. “Sounds like fun, but I don’t think I want to pat down your buddies, though, so we’ll use a scanner.”
She gave a look of mock disappointment. I could feel my blood stirring. Human women were rare on Kandalor, and I had little to offer one. Truth was I didn’t have much experience there, either. Candace’s mocking smile told me that she suspected it.
Stick to business, I thought, you’re out of your depth with her.
I checked the load and scanned my passenger for weapons. We boarded Sinner and settled in. Candace rode in the second seat on the flight deck. Her companions strapped in the far less comfortable cargo compartment, grumbling loudly enough to be heard. Candace smiled and shrugged.
Sinner kicked free of Kandalor’s surface and started a slow ascent. Kandalor stretched out forever below us, seducing the eye and the imagination. Empires had come and gone on this world while humans lived in caves and waved stone axes.
“Beautiful,” Candace said, looking out at the mountain and huge forests beyond the spaceport area. In the distance lay the ruins of one of the many lost civilizations. Haze made the wildly tilting towers appear blue.
“Yep,” I said. “You’ve got spaceports and primitive tribes all on the same world, an archeologist’s treasure trove.”
“Here and in space,” Candace said absently. “Those empires extended out for hundreds of light years. Lots of good stuff out there.”
“Going to tell me what we’re looking for?” I asked.
“Just drive the taxi, Honey.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Candace talked as we boosted toward the Rift, using my ion engine for a slow, steady thrust. I found myself liking her. I didn’t want to; friends are an expensive luxury for a Rifter. I set the autopilot and we turned in early. I had trouble falling asleep, thinking of Candace’s lush body in the bunk above me, wondering what it would be like.
We came up on the Rift in the next watch, not that there was anything to see. Even in as thick an asteroid belt as the Rift, it would be unusual for any two objects to be in visual range.
We set course for a large riftoid well in from the edge. One of a million such rocks unvisited by anyone since the planet blew to hell. Gradually the riftoid grew from a tiny point of light to a gray, pitted, roughly spherical rock about 2000 kilometers in diameter. Scanners showed it to be almost pure nickel-iron. A huge impact crater marred part of it.
“That’s the one,” Harung said. Everyone was crammed into my cockpit, staring hungrily at the pitted gray surface. “Just as I remember it.”
“Probably part of the old world’s core,” Treska grunted. “That would account for all the metal. It’ll give it a bit more gravity than you usually get in a rock this size.”
We drifted down to the surface. Treska was right; gravity was strong enough that I didn’t need to fix anchors. I did it anyway, space rewards the cautious.
“Suit up, everyone,” Candace ordered.
I looked at her. “I’m just driving the taxi.”
“Don’t be like that, Honey. Now that we’re here, don’t you want to see what we came for?”
“Depends.”
“What do we need him for?” Harung demanded.
I sighed. “She doesn’t want to leave me behind in the ship so I can hold you up when you come back with whatever treasure you came for.” I looked at Candace. “Ever get tired of working with people who aren’t as smart as you?”
“No,” she replied. “I only like smart men in bed.”
Harung glared at me.
We suited up and walked out onto the surface of the riftoid. Treska unlimbered a large mining scanner. Evidently he got a fix on something, as he began moving in quick little hops, kicking up dust. Candace and Harung followed, lugging their equipment. I thought about waiting where I was, then decided it might be safer to stick with the herd. Five minutes later, we found ourselves in a small crater, looking at an oddly-shaped hatchway of yellow metal nearly three meters across.
“What the hell is it?” I asked, excitement getting the better of me. Dust indicated that the hatch hadn’t been opened in a long, long time. The design didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen.
“Maybe an Old Empire asteroid station,” Treska said absently.
I looked around. “Over 50,000 years old.”
“Or more,” Treska said. “I spotted it when I was here with a freighter that came out of hyper too close to the Rift and had to dump delta-V to avoid a collision. I kept the readings on my scanner to myself. Those Combine bastards wouldn’t have given me a percentage of any find.”
“Why don’t you tell him your life story?” Harung growled as he placed heavy jacks around the hatch.
Candace used a laser drill to place a monofilament probe through what looked like an inspection port. “As you suspected, Treska,” she said, “hard vacuum on the other side. Start the jacks.”
The power jacks took five minutes to crack the airlock. We used pry bars until we could squeeze through in space suits. A few more minutes on the inner door and we were shining our torches inside.
The interior of the station was familiar looking; form follows function. We saw a rack of odd-shaped spacesuits hung on the bulkheads. Whatever wore them had been much bigger than a human, multi-legged, with a large skull or a need for a lot of headroom. Boxes and tanks lay all over the floor. The metal of the floor worked with our magnetic boots.
“This is a military station,” I said.
Candace looked at me. “Why’s that?”
“A lot of compartmentation, thick hatches to deal with explosive decompression. Though I’m surprised a military station wouldn’t have been dug deeper, for blast protection.”
“Maybe it was converted from something?” Harung said.
“Who knows?” Treska shrugged.
Candace nodded. We played our flashlights around the gray and white metal halls, looking at unfamiliar inscriptions and dead light panels.
“It kind of reminds me of the old lifeboat stations they have in Sol’s system from before the advent of hyperdrive.” Candace said.
“We might find an Old Empire ship,” Harung exclaimed.
We started down the sloping corridor and came to a partially opened doorway.
“Christ, look at that.” Treska pointed.
At our feet lay a large pile of shredded fabric covered with white dust. Nearby lay boots, though not for any human foot, and a thing that could have either been a power rifle or some sort of heavy tool.
Candace bent down. “Crew. Must have died here in the doorway. Wonder what tore up the uniform?” Cautiously, she pushed open the doorway and looked in, a prybar in one hand and flashlight in the other.
Harung brayed a laugh. “Looking for something? That corpse has been there for fifty millennia in vacuum. The fibers degraded and fell apart. We’ll bag what’s left for the scientists. They’ll pay plenty for material from the corpse of an unknown species.”
“Look, a ship!” Cand
ace exclaimed. Her light illuminated a small vessel beyond. It looked like it was made of some translucent, half-melted, dark-green glass. Yet it was recognizably a spacecraft.
“If you’re right about this being a lifestation,” I said, “there’s your lifeboat.”
Harung pushed past Candace and me with Treska on his heels. The smaller man accidentally kicked an alien boot. It spun silently away into the darkness beyond our lights. I shuddered.
Candace knelt by the fragments of fabric and the metal implement. “A weapon?”
“Maybe,” I said. “It has that look, but I don’t see any sights.”
“Well, any charge it had must have gone before the pyramids were built.”
The space beyond was wide and flat, big enough for several small craft. A hatchway that must have once opened outward formed the roof of the hangar; for all that we had seen no sign of the hatch on the surface. Harung and Treska clambered all over the small ship, peering into it with lights.
“Wrik,” Candace called from the far side. I went over. She was standing over a pile of white dusty fabric and more boots, buckles and webbing. The fabric was shredded like the first one.
“What the hell?” I said.
“There’s a passage up ahead. If this is like a Terran lifestation, it will lead to the medical and crew quarters.”
“After you,” I said.
She frowned at me. “You’re a bring-up-the-rear kind of guy, aren’t you, Wrik?”
“You weren’t hiring at Hero’s Hall.”
We left the others to explore the ship. Our magnetic boots raised a thin film of dust, to hang and fall slowly in the low gravity. Colors here were more vibrant than in the more utilitarian areas. The combinations hurt my eyes.
We reached the crew quarters. Debris covered the area. All manner of odd-looking furniture lay scattered and broken.
“Decompression?” Candace asked.
I shrugged.
Chapter 3
Existence. I am aware again. I have no sense of elapsed time, but I know that a great deal of it has passed. Despite draining the energy of my weapons armspac, I am low on power. Awakening and diagnostics have taken .032 seconds, a dismal reaction time due to battle damage and power levels.
I sense vibrations from creatures moving about the station. They do not respond to my IFF signal. Either mine are out of date or these are Infestors. I move out to recon and attack as needed.
My scanner picks up modulated radio transmission and I immediately penetrate their communication network. They are not even coded, merely on different frequencies. The result is gibberish, but there are translating programs in the network and machines whose subroutines are mathematical. It allows me to use binary code to begin eavesdropping though I am vexed by how slowly the process goes.
***
We spent two hours searching through the area near the lifeboat. The longer we were at it, the more I began to suspect that a firefight had taken place in this station eons ago. I noticed another thing. Treska seemed to be looking for something, or perhaps waiting for it. Sweat sheened the man’s face and he jumped at shadows. I was beginning to wish for a weapon when my worst fears were confirmed.
From the shadows and halls around us, figures suddenly appeared. Lights blinded the four of us.
“Hello, Wrik.” Space-suited and armed men stepped out of the shadows. “Please don’t move, Ms. Deveraux.”
The lights were lowered and the Dua-Denlenn emerged from behind the huge Okaran, Truf. He hadn’t bothered to draw a weapon, certain in his mastery of the situation. “So nice of you to arrange this meeting, Wrik.”
Deveraux looked at me, murder in her eyes.
“What are you talking about, Dusko? I didn’t—”
“No need to pretend any more, Wrik. You’ve done your work well.”
“I told you we couldn’t trust him,” Harung shouted.
“No one can trust young Wrik,” Dusko said. “Except, of course, for me. He’s brought me this lovely base with all its billions of credits worth of artifacts. So very nice.”
I bit back any further reply. I could see I wasn’t getting anywhere. Dusko had the high hand and this farce appealed to his catlike sense of humor. I looked at Treska and he avoided my eyes. Of course, I thought, it had to be him. Who else knew where we were going? He must have gotten a transmitter past me in his personal gear.
Before I could say anything, Candace stepped forward and Truf leveled his weapon at her.
“There is the matter of our prior claim,” she said coolly.
“Oh, that,” Dusko replied. “I am so sorry. It will be necessary to invalidate your claim, by making sure you’re not there to present it.”
“Hey, boss,” a voice called over the net. “I think I saw something move. How many of these assholes are there?”
Dusko looked at me. “Wrik? Did you pick up some other people and not tell me?”
“Your people are jumping at shadows, Dusko.”
***
I move into direct observation range. I spot bipedal targets that are more akin to my creators than to Infestors. Hope stirs in me…
And is then dashed as I study the creatures and their communications. They are not of my creators, nor are they Infestors. We’d never encountered any other race before the Infestors and their slave races. I suspect that these represent more than one species. This intel is mission critical. I move closer to observe.
This is a mistake. Made clumsy by damage, I am detected. The aliens spot me and make no effort to communicate. They open fire.
Flames wash over my chassis, but the temperature is far too low to injure me. The volley of high-velocity bullets is a greater threat in my present reduced condition. I counterattack the three aliens in the confined space. My only operational weapons are my appendages. I plunge these into the nearest biped alien. It ruptures, filling the vacuum with fluid. I sample the fluid and gases of the destroyed biological as I pass through it and attack the others.
While it would be desirable to obtain a prisoner, the other aliens are summoning reinforcements, if I decipher their shrill, staccato communications correctly. I destroy two more, taking minor damage in the process. Prisoners will have to wait.
I encounter an additional biological. We literally stumble into each other. I attack when it points something at me. As I stand over the fragments of it, I realize that the small device is not a weapon, but rather a recording device. I have killed a noncombatant. This is a quandary. Destroying noncombatant Infestors was within my programming, though as with interrogation, I found the process unsettling, especially with the young ones. I know that I have previously deleted such memories. I could never kill one of my creators. I have no programming for killing a creature that is neither Infestor nor enemy.
I must have a prisoner to interrogate. That will determine my further actions. My analysis indicates that there are three or four groups on the asteroid and two of them seem to be avoiding the others.
One is alone and will be my target.
***
I ran until I couldn’t anymore, trying to outpace Dusko’s killers and Candace’s group. I had no friends on this asteroid. Now that I had some distance, I could plan. But any plan I had centered on getting back to the Sinner, and I couldn’t believe Dusko had left my ship unguarded.
“Wrik,” Dusko’s voice sounded in my ears, “intelligent life seems endangered on this rock. Come in. Truce till we deal with whatever is stalking us. You may know something useful to me.”
“And the second after that, you kill me,” I returned.
“I am the only game in town,” Dusko added. “Deveraux believes you set her up and she’ll kill you on sight.”
“Why did you tell her that?”
“Oh Wrik, you know me. I must have my little jokes and it might still be useful to me to have her trust Har
ung.”
“No deal.”
“You want to face whatever this is alone? How much air you got left, human?”
I looked down at my O2 gauge. It measured my remaining life in hours. I lifted my head and the helmet lights shifted upward, revealing the face of death, white and with staring black holes for eyes.
I screamed and thrust myself backward but forgot the low gravity and caromed off the ceiling. Something irresistible snatched me out of the air.
“Help! Help!” I shouted.
“Ah, Wrik, you should have listened to me,” Dusko said. Then his circuit clicked off.
Whatever held me was racing through the dead station faster than any human could, pinning my arms against my body. No struggle availed against its grip and we descended further into the darkness, my suit light flashing crazily off the walls.
I was disoriented, blood roaring in my ears as my sight dimmed. I just hoped it would all be over soon and drifted out of consciousness.
I awoke with a start and looked around frantically, panic drying my mouth.
The light from my helmet fell on it and I froze. For a mad second I thought it was a corpse in a black body suit. It didn’t move. I stared at it, paralyzed. Seconds passed and it did not move. I realized that what I thought were eyeless sockets in the slack face were panels of black metal or plastic. The gaping mouth held something that might have been a speaker.
Robot, my mind supplied, robot.
It moved and I raised my arms with a scream. The thing stopped.
We stood facing each other. I thought about my radio, but there was no one I could call, even if it didn’t attack me at the movement. My radio was set to Dusko’s frequency and he’d switched off.
A screech burst in my ears. I jerked as if stabbed. It modulated and then I heard something, distorted, but still a word. “Identify.” Whatever this thing was, it had been studying us as it stalked.
“My name is Wrik Trigardt. I’m a civilian from the Confederacy, which will destroy you if you harm me.” It sounded pathetic even to me. “I mean you no harm.”
“Are you scrreeeee?” The last word was untranslated.
My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1) Page 2