Darkness Rising

by C. Gockel

  “Volka, go! We’ll be right behind you,” 6T9 said, and for once she actually heeded him. They hobbled toward the ship, the Luddecceans closing ranks from all directions. 6T9 didn’t see the flamethrower behind them extinguish, but he heard it. A moment later, the scream of birds intensified. He heard a startled, “Jesus,” from a Luddeccean and a more colorful curse from Benjamin. 6T9 glanced to the side and saw a bird with a long curving beak and immense talons ripping at Ben’s suit. A rock sped through the air and knocked it off, faster than even 6T9 could blink. He heard Volka growl, and his head snapped in her direction. She was just recovering from the throw, arm outstretched, foot forward. As soon as that registered, she was running toward Ben, and then past him. The bird was on the ground, looking stunned and harmless, but Volka ended its life with a kick to the head that broke its neck.

  “Move!” shouted their guide, and 6T9 snapped his attention ahead. He’d unconsciously followed Volka’s movements. On the other side of James, Moulton said, “Damn, I love you, woman.”

  “Careful what you say, Son, and around who,” the Luddeccean quipped.

  The gangway of the ship, packed with Luddecceans and the team, was approaching, and 6T9 was too busy lugging James up it to contemplate the Luddeccean’s words.

  Volka pressed herself into the bodies on the gangway. It began lifting almost the second she stepped on it, and she almost fell over, but caught herself on Ben’s back. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Luddeccean Guard firing flamethrowers out the narrowing gap behind them. Animals and birds of all types were throwing themselves at the rising vessel. The opening closed with a sudden clang, and the ship accelerated. The space they were in had dark metal walls and it was much too small for the number of bodies. Acceleration sent her backward, and she collided against the Luddeccean Guardsmen who’d been behind her and they collided against the wall. Everyone else—6T9, Ben, the team, and the Guardsmen who’d come aboard before her—collided with her. The entire ship shook, and men put their hands on the walls. Volka would have fallen over again if she wasn’t pressed so tight by all the people around her.

  The ship stabilized but Volka’s heart rate accelerated, and her skin went cold, even though her suit was thermoregulated. “Why is this space so cramped?” she asked. There wasn’t room for the Guard team and the Republic team. If she didn’t have her air recirculation device in her helmet, she doubted she would be able to breathe. They were being treated like cattle, and that did not bode well. She thought of the “pliers and wires” in the guest house garage on Luddeccea…

  “This is a trap,” she whispered, heart beating loud in her ears. “I don’t see Trina, John, Dr. Lang, or the others—”

  “Nah, the ship is just small, and they wanted to get the wounded through decon and to sickbay as soon as possible,” Ben said, inclining his head to the front of the chamber.

  Volka stood on her tiptoes. Sure enough, there was a door marked DECON ahead in bold yellow letters.

  Sixty looked back over his shoulder at her. His hair was flattened against his head, his face was coated with grime, and his expression was drawn. He looked very human. “It’s standard procedure to send wounded through first when minutes can mean life or death.”

  “Yep, your man got it right,” said one of the Guardsmen. “Also, we heard that those researchers might know what is going on down here. Even us Luddies know those scientist’s smarts are needed more than us grunts at the moment. They’re fine.”

  There were a few chuckles from the other Luddeccean Guardsmen and even some of the Republic team.

  There was a moment of silence and then Young said, “That was an explosion that rocked the ship. Sounded like we just missed the missile from the time gate.”

  Another voice with a Luddeccean accent answered him. “Heard it was just an escape pod probably set to self-destruct.”

  Young replied, “Would have killed us just the same. Thanks for the lift.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then the man behind Volka said, “Well, you know we were in the neighborhood and felt like stopping by.”

  There were a few chuckles around the cramped space.

  “Let me go,” James hissed, jerking his arms off of Ben and Sixty’s shoulders.

  “Looks like you two fought a lion barehanded,” one of the Luddecceans said, admiration, and maybe a little fear, in his voice…or even compassion. Sixty’s and James’s suits were both ripped and torn, and they both had lost their helmets.

  “The things they fought looked like lions,” said Ben, shaking his head and whistling.

  “It wasn’t heroics,” James spat. “We’re androids, and we can’t be infected. It would have been illogical for us not to protect our team.”

  Luddecceans and the team shifted on their feet. James’s tone was so out of line with his words.

  “Easy, James,” said Sixty, putting a hand on his friend’s back.

  James knocked it away, almost beaning Volka. Fortunately, she was short and didn’t have to duck very far. “I’ve been on the receiving end of Luddeccean hospitality before,” James snarled at Sixty. “So has Noa. The humans in here are on their way to a re-education camp; you and I will be lucky if we’re slagged.”

  Everyone fell silent, and Volka’s jaw dropped open in shock. James had seemed so...stoic.

  Holding up his hands, the Luddeccean who’d introduced himself as Lieutenant Grayson said, “We’re planning on taking you home.”

  There were nods all around from the Luddecceans.

  The man continued, “Even you robots—androids and any augment-cyborg-creatures.”

  The Luddecceans continued to nod, but all of the Galactic team got very still, and then Young said, “That’s good, because there isn’t a one of us that isn’t a cyborg.”

  There was nervous shuffling among the Luddecceans, and Volka knew if she could smell anything other than her suit, she’d smell fear. She had become accustomed to not thinking of all the humans in the Republic as cyborgs. She thought of them more as being attached to tiny, invisible phones, but cyborgs were what they were. To the Luddecceans, that would mean they were under machine control. Even Alaric had believed that anyone connected to the ethernet could be remotely controlled, but 6T9 had assured Volka that wasn’t true.

  Red lights flashed in the corner of the room, and a Luddeccean shouted, “Hold onto your stomachs, the drive is about to engage.” The ship had been steadily rising, pressing Volka into the deck, but at the Luddeccean’s words, gravity vanished and alarms blared. Bile rose in her stomach, and she was glad she had nothing there to lose. Her feet hit the deck a second later.

  The alarms ceased. A voice crackled over the intercom, and Volka froze. It was Alaric. “Away team, Galactic Republic guests, I apologize for the cramped quarters. In a few minutes, you’ll be released into decon. We have some business to attend to in System 33, but I’d like to assure the Galacticans that the next stop will be System 1, where you will all be released into Galactic Fleet custody.”

  Volka heard exhales of relief all around.

  The intercom cracked again. “In the meantime, I will have to ask you to disarm so your weapons can be autoclaved.”

  The intercom went silent. Grayson cleared his throat. “Galacticans, you’ll need to turn over your weapons.” There was a moment of more than silence, a sort of stillness. But then Young, very close to Volka said, “We’re their guests.” He lifted the strange grenade, the top half still filled with the pulsing orange, and Grayson and all the Luddecceans stepped back.

  “It’s partially activated!” someone whispered.

  “It wasn’t for you,” Young said quickly, raising his other hand. “It was for us. We weren’t going to be taken alive. You came just in time. These things take milliseconds to power up, but it will need…” Volka couldn’t see his face behind his visor, but heard him wince when he added, “Fifteen minutes and thirty-three seconds longer to power down completely.”

  Lieutenant Grayson took it ginger
ly, and said in a deadpan voice, “I’m guessing I don’t want this to get hot or jostle it too much.”

  “They’re supposed to be shock and heat resistant at this stage,” Young said.

  “Would you risk it?” Grayson asked.

  “Not if I had a choice,” Young said, and this time Volka could hear his wry smile.

  Grayson chuckled, and tension left the room. Young handed over a few more devices that Volka couldn’t identify, and around her, other Marines and Luddeccean Guards started doing the same. When that ritual was done, and the weapons were stowed, Grayson ordered the autoclave not to begin for twenty minutes so as not to trigger the “grenade,” and then he cleared his throat and said, “We’ll have to pat you down now. Would be helpful if you tell us about any weapons underneath your suits. If we find something in pat down that isn’t declared, we’ll have to ask you to take it out, and then you’ll need to be quarantined.”

  Young said, “Got it, standard procedure.” There were nods, and men held up their hands. Volka’s face flushed.

  Sixty looked down at Volka and said, “It is standard procedure.”

  Gulping, Volka nodded. She just hated it. A pat down from a Guardsman meant more than a pat. To her surprise though, the man who got her said, “I’m sorry about this, ma’am,” and took no liberties. Off in the corner, she heard the words, “Captain Darmadi’s weere.”

  There was a whoosh and light spilled in. Dr. Walker’s voice echoed through the room. By the muffled sound of it, she was still fully suited. “The researchers, Stratos, Trina, and I were all decontaminated, and I saw them safely to sickbay. Now I’m back to help you lot.”

  Despite the assurances Ben and Sixty had given her, Volka couldn’t help but notice their shoulders loosening at Dr. Walker’s words. For the first time, she felt herself relax a bit.

  Dr. Walker continued, “Line up on either side, check each other for punctures to your suits, or cracks in your helmets. You know the drill.”

  The room started thinning out. Volka could see through the DECON door and into another room that looked exactly like the room they were in. She started to follow everyone else, but 6T9 turned around and put a hand on her shoulder. A furrow between his brows, he scanned her up and down. “Your front is good, Volka. Hold out your arms and turn around.” Seeing the Marines and Luddecceans in that exact pose, Volka did as she was told, and 6T9 said, “You’re good.”

  Walker came over and tapped the helmet of her suit. A light flashed in her helmet. “Volka’s suit’s internal readouts show no punctures, either.”

  “Ah,” said Ben. “I think I have a puncture.”

  Remembering the bird with the wicked curved beak and long talons, Volka looked at him in alarm. Ben’s front was to her, but just looking at him, she got a horrible feeling in her stomach.

  “Your suit isn’t showing any punctures,” Walker said, and Volka released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, but Ben shook his head. “It started acting up a few hours ago. I think it’s got a bad battery. I wouldn’t trust it. It feels wrong.” Volka couldn’t see anything, but she could feel something when she focused on his left shoulder. Turning, Ben flexed his muscles, and there it was—a tear about half as long as Volka’s finger. There was blood, already scabbing over, but worse, when Volka looked at it, she felt colder, and shadows played at the edges of her vision. Volka thought of Sundancer, her brilliant hull becoming dark gray…

  Dr. Walker was on the cut in an instant. “I’m giving you everything I’ve got, Ben,” she said. She swabbed it with something, injected him with something else, attacked the cut with something that made Ben hiss with pain, and left the cut bubbling. Finally, she bandaged up the wound and put a thick black tape over the tear in the suit. “You’ll go through ionization with everyone else, but you’ll have to keep the suit on, and after that, I’m afraid you’re off to quarantine, Buddy.” Her voice was too gentle, and it made Volka nervous, but when Walker pulled away, Volka didn’t feel as cold looking at Ben, and the blackness at the edge of her vision was just a hazy sort of gray. She told herself what little chill that remained was just her worry for him and gave him a game smile.

  “Anyone else?” Walker asked.

  The officer who’d been doing all the talking cleared his throat. “Russo and Silva.”

  Two Guardsmen, one she was sure had had his flamethrower die, started shaking their heads. “We’ll wait for our own doctor,” one said.

  “No lady-cyborg is touching me,” said the other.

  Narrowing her eyes, Walker said to the Luddeccean Lieutenant, “Give them standard first aid, tape them up, and get them into the decon chamber.” Turning to Sixty and James, she said, “You two will have to stay in here. You’ve most likely got the pathogen in your lungs and in your synth blood.”

  Volka’s eyes dropped to Sixty’s chest and she got that strange chill and the darkness in her vision again. “She’s right, Sixty,” Volka gasped. She put her hands to her face and had the horrible sensation that her heart was going to pound out of her chest.

  “It won’t hurt me,” Sixty said. “They’ll probably just autoclave James and me after making us inhale internal nano-temperature monitors. It will be fine.”

  “No, it won’t!” said James. “We’ll melt.”

  “Only our skin,” said Sixty.

  “Nope, you’re not going to melt,” Walker said. “Bower and Isaacs have confirmed that the bacteria isn’t particularly resistant to heat. An hour at 110 Celsius will kill it.”

  “One-hundred ten C?” Volka squeaked. That was hotter than the hottest day in Luddeccea’s city of New Prime by seventy degrees.

  Sixty grinned. “It will be like an hour at the sauna.”

  “No, it won’t,” James rumbled.

  “You’re being illogical,” Sixty rumbled in his Android General 1 voice. “They could raise the temperature to 115 C and we would be fine. If you are worried about the discomfort. Turn. Off.”

  “I will not turn off around them,” James said.

  “Ben and Volka, you need to move into the decon chamber,” Walker said.

  Volka hung back. Inclining his head toward the door, Sixty said, “Go on. Really, we will be fine.”

  Ben put a hand on her shoulder and drew her away. “They will.”

  Volka looked up at Ben. She couldn’t see his face with the lights reflecting on his helmet. She swallowed. Would he be fine?

  The door between 6T9 and Volka closed, but there was a window, and 6T9 followed the pair with his eyes. Ben blended into all the other suited humans, but Volka was so tiny, she was impossible to miss. His eyes fell on the human man’s hand on her shoulder, and he snapped a hand behind his neck to control his head tic.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be going to quarantine,” James said.

  Turning to James, 6T9 said, “I will worry about that. Walker applied all the standard anti-bacterial agents but if the pathogen is exceptionally virulent, he could die.” And he seemed like a nice enough human.

  “You’re not the slightest bit jealous?” James asked.

  “I am programmed not to be jealous, James.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I would miss her if she didn’t live on the asteroid, though,” 6T9 admitted. “Even though she kills deer and rats and eats them raw.” He closed his eyes. But Volka also enjoyed listening to him read books from ancient Earth while she sketched. And she always said “please” and “thank you” to him and basically treated him with courtesy and respect...aside from their argument in the elevator on Copernicus City. That seemed like a long time ago now, though it was less than forty-eight hours past.

  “I am going to reboot,” 6T9 said. He desperately needed to. Obviously.

  Pacing the small space like a caged animal, James ran a hand through his hair, and his face was drawn. “Don’t reboot and leave me here alone.”

  6T9’s circuits sparked. “You’re acting exactly like a human with PTSD.” And if a human had gone through what James ha
d gone through, that would be understandable. But James wasn’t human.

  His friend stopped pacing, turned to 6T9 and said, “Well, that’s obviously impossible. I’m not programmed to experience PTSD.”

  6T9’s Q-comm hummed, trying to determine if he’d heard sarcasm in James’s voice and what that could possibly imply, but also if James was malfunctioning and simply in need of a reboot as 6T9 was. There was also an 88.2 percent chance that what 6T9 was actually hearing was offense. No android liked to be called illogical.

  An intercom cracked in the wall, and Walker’s voice echoed in the chamber. “Hey guys, there is an incineration box in the side of the wall. See the red handle?”

  6T9 replied, “Yes.”

  “You need to take off your suits and put them in there,” Walker said.

  Static flared under his skin and 6T9 touched the packet of Eliza’s ashes under his suit. “I have an item I want to keep. It’s imper-seal plastic. May I please keep it with me?”

  There was a moment of silence in which all of 6T9’s circuits dimmed, but then Walker said, “Sure, that’s fine. Autoclaving at that temperature will kill any bugs even if the seal is broken. Your suits with the heat shield layers are another matter.”

  “Understood,” said 6T9, circuits firing so brightly he almost couldn’t see.

  “That’s very sentimental of you,” James said. James was one of the few androids who knew of the packet’s existence.

  “I was programmed to be sentimental to Eliza,” 6T9 said. “She was my owner.”

  “Uh huh,” said James.

  Too busy stripping off his suit to ponder what that meant, 6T9 grinned. “It’s going to be exactly like a sauna. Are you sure you don’t want me to reboot?” Lifting his head, he winked at James, but the other android’s back was to him.

  Instead of the gruff reply that he expected, James said softly, “I can’t do this alone, 6T9.”

  He did sound like a human in trauma. Which, as James had said, was impossible. Or had he? 6T9’s eyes went to the window in the door, but couldn’t see anything other than the other room’s lights.