by Mick Fraser
“I felt suicidal for months. But Frank never blamed me. Not once. He helped me get through it. We did it together. I spent two hard years in therapy, learning to forgive myself. Then I spent years working in charities, helping other people avoid my mistakes. I thought I was done with it. When I spoke to Guin, she made me remember it all.”
Gaelan pressed her forehead against Angela’s. Their tears ran together, a river born in their mutual grief. “I’ve never met anyone like you,” the Avellian whispered. “You’re stronger when you’re afraid. Not many could have dealt with what you’ve dealt with. You... make me feel like I’m not alone...”
Angela suddenly felt Gaelan’s lips on her own, and a tremble tore through her body, twisting a knot in her stomach. Goosebumps rippled across her flesh at the taste of the other girl’s lips, awash with the tang of salty tears. Her mind went blank, her pain fell away, drained away, as though Gaelan’s touch had torn the sorrow from her flesh. Never before had she felt such fierce tenderness. She almost shrank away – and then a longing she wasn’t prepared for fired her blood. She kissed back, pressing her lips against Gaelan’s, cupping the other girl’s face and pulling her closer, tighter, as though they couldn’t get close enough without being inside one another, part of one another. Gaelan rose against her, arching her back, and Angela became acutely aware of the swell of her breasts, the curve of her spine. Her hands wandered down, unsteady, unsure…
The intercom buzzed and Gaelan jerked away as if she had been slapped. She stood, her skin rippling through the entire spectrum in no particular order as she made a show of straightening her clothes and hair. Angela sat back, suddenly painfully aware that she was only wearing a vest and briefs. Her nipples ached, which was an embarrassing realisation in itself. She clutched her bed covers, not sure where to put her eyes.
“We’re coming up on Seth, people,” Drenno informed the ship at large. “I need all of you up to the bridge for briefing.”
“Well,” Gaelan breathed, “you heard the man.”
“I did,” Angela said as Gaelan swept out of the room. She touched her lips. Where the hell had that come from? She tried to cast her mind back over the last few days, searching for any indication that Gaelan had been feeling that way. Had she been feeling that way? Or was it something born in sorrow?
More frightening than the kiss itself was her reaction to it. No, not frightening, she realised. Thrilling. Her heart was pounding, but she wasn’t scared. She was breathless, but she wasn’t staggered. The ghost of the kiss lingered on her mouth.
She swore, more confused than she could remember ever being. Trying her best to push it from her mind, she remembered the Captain’s summons and stood to get dressed.
CHAPTER 34
~COLD HARBOUR~
“SETH, IN ALL her splendour,” said Drenno. His fingertips punched against the command console’s touchpad, and the viewscreen shutters opened to reveal a white world orbited by seven much smaller moons. “Give us the run-down, Diz.”
The To’ecc clicked his tongue. “Rock. Ice. Snow. No indigenous. Nothing, actually. There’s some base fauna, bacteria in the deep water, but the temperature’s running at around four hadron.” He glanced at Angela “That’s cold. Really cold. Air is breathable, just, and our target is... here.” He highlighted a small section of the world in the northern hemisphere. “Luckily, that’s the warm part. You’ll still freeze to death in minutes without a life-suit.”
“But there’s a Dashaan there?” Illith said. “How can there be no life? This isn’t a Deadworld.”
“Seth suffered a freak ice age,” Shimmer cut in as she scanned through data on her monitor. “It struck several hundred years ago. It was only ever a research station for the Iniir in the first place, thanks to some interesting flora. The Dashaan was probably built exclusively for the resident science team.”
Drenno seemed to consider something, and his eyes flashed to Angela for half a heartbeat. “Run an orbital scan, would you, Diz?”
The To’ecc half-turned in his chair. “Looking for something, boss?”
“Not in particular, no.”
The console bleeped in response to Dizzy’s input. “We’re clear. Little debris here and there, remains of a satellite, likely a comm-sat left behind by the Founders. And empty space – lots of that.”
Apparently satisfied, Drenno spun his chair to face Angela. As he did the door opened and Gaelan entered the bridge. Her eyes caught Angela’s for a moment before she looked away. Angela realised Drenno was watching her more intently than usual and she attempted to look nonchalant. He held her gaze a heartbeat too long, and then seemed to snap out of it. “Okay: personnel. There’s nothing here besides ice, snow, rocks, and a ruined Founder temple in which lies part of an ancient doomsday machine built to kill a Celestial God, so… minimum ground team. Me, Angela, Shimmer and Winston. The rest of you hang tight.”
“I’ll prep the Jack,” said Dizzy, but Drenno shook his head.
“No. Save the fuel. Take the Shadowstar down. She could do with a little wind and snow.”
THE instant the ramp lowered, the shocking cold hit Angela like a physical force. Even in the life-suit – essentially a thick thermal layer worn over, and wired to, her hypersuit – it almost stung. She had her hypersuit’s breather up, which protected her eyes from the whipping wind and snow. She looked down, wiping white crystals of ice off the screen of her reader.
“Winston, waypoint,” Drenno ordered, and Angela’s databand vibrated. The 3D map appeared in her HUD, showing a representation of their current position. A red blip a few hundred metres away highlighted the entrance to the Dashaan. They trudged on in silence. The snow was several feet deep, and Angela stumbled twice, buffeted by the gales. The whole world seemed built from ice; to the east – or “sunwards” – a great crest rose hundreds of feet into the air, a frozen tidal wave that looked poised to crack and crumble, raining a thousand tonnes of ice down upon them. She shivered, and not just from the cold. Suddenly, Drenno raised a hand, halting the group. He knelt in the snow, his gloved fingers tracing an unseen pattern before him.
Shimmer knelt on the other side of him. Angela couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they rose after a few moments without a word of explanation. Both scanned the surrounding area, and Shimmer looked back to him, giving an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
“What’s wrong?” Angela asked them.
Drenno ignored her. “Winston, do a local scan, would you?”
“Yes, Captain.” The mechanid emitted a sharp ping, and Angela’s databand buzzed against her brow again. “There’s nothing in radius, sir.
“What is wrong?” Angela repeated, sounding out the words loud and slow.
Drenno was preoccupied, but her tone got through to him. His voice echoed through her commlink. “The ground looks disturbed here. Might be an illusion caused by the crosswinds and recent snowfall.” He slid his handcannon free of its holster and thumbed the charge switch before replacing it. He caught Angela’s expression. “It’s just a precaution. Gaelan, do you read me, mirrah?”
“Yes,” came her reply. “What do you need?”
“Same routine as Nix: ping our position every couple of turns. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“You want Gage and I to join you?” Illith asked.
“Negative. I might be jumping at shadows here, and anyway, I want to be in and out as quickly as possible.”
They pushed on, altering their direction so that for a while they were forced to walk directly into the wind. The resistance was high, but before long a dark shadow began to effervesce from within the white swirl ahead, slowly revealing itself to be a rock face. As they drew closer the wind lowered, and soon the sheer face of a high cliff-side was fully visible. At its base, a few hundred yards ahead, was an ornate archway carved into the rock. If it had ever had a door or gate, it was gone now, and the lintel had sagged under the piling weight of centuries of snow, so that it stood like a jagged wound torn i
nto the rock. When they reached it, Angela saw that the intricate carvings surrounding the archway were half-smothered in snow, but Shimmer brushed it off.
“Elma Shai,” she read. “This Dashaan was built to cater to the personnel of Elma Shai, a research and development laboratory somewhere in the vicinity. This is our target.”
“These are the coordinates,” Winston confirmed. “Here’s hoping for fewer rukwyrms.”
Shimmer stepped inside the entryway. Angela moved closer to see that there was a solid wall in place of a gate. The Ri'in signalled her. “You need to open it,” she explained.
Angela moved into the entryway, relieved to be out of the wind. “How?”
“Here.” Shimmer indicated a touchpad at around head-height.
Angela reached up, pressing her hand against it. Nothing happened.
“Gloves,” Shimmer told her, and Angela chuffed. She slid her right-hand glove off and touched the pad again. This time the wall moved instantly, sprinkling snow down upon them. Shimmer produced one of her glowing orbs as she glided into the Dashaan. Angela ducked in behind her. The walls were smooth, reinforced and clad in a material that felt like smooth stone. It wasn’t hollowed into the rock like the last temple they’d visited. Now out of the wind, Angela pressed the switch on her collar and dropped her breather. The air smelled damp and musty, like an old cupboard under someone’s stairs that hadn’t been opened in years.
“Smells like something died in here,” Drenno grunted as he entered. “How far in do we need to go, Shim?”
“Dashaans are always subterranean, but their depth varies. Unlike the one we found on Nix, Elma Shai hasn’t suffered a cave-in. It shouldn’t be far.”
True enough, it wasn’t long before the narrow walkway opened up into a series of wider chambers. There were marks on the floor here and there where furniture or equipment had once stood before treasure hunters or raiders had picked the place clean. But no matter what else had been stolen, the one thing no one could get by was the DNA-coded door that the Founders used to seal their most prized possessions. As the team entered a large room decorated with a mural similar to the one on Nix, Angela could see that someone had put a great deal of effort into trying to get through this one. Huge score marks defaced the carved imagery, and the light of Shimmer’s orb showed them to be blackened and gnarled. The Ri'in closely inspected one such mark, Drenno another.
“Plasmata,” he said, almost awed. “Someone went at this with concentrated plasma; likely used a stabilised Phase-drive. Some of these cuts are almost an arm deep.” He sniffed one closely, recoiling. “Winston – what am I smelling?”
The mechanid hovered over, gently spinning, and shone a violet light on the wall. Dust motes sparkled in its beam. “Pestrel,” he said. “A coolant that—”
“Yeah, I know what pestrel is.” Drenno glanced at Shimmer, who ran her white-gloved finger along the edge of one of the cuts. She held it up – it was almost clean. His eyes moved to Angela and back to Shimmer. “How did they get in?”
“They could have burrowed into one of the side tunnels,” the Ri’in guessed. “Only the artefact’s chamber is DNA sealed and several arms thick.”
Drenno swore again and slapped his hand against his commlink. “Diz! Run a scan again. Now. Gaelan too, organic and mechanical.”
For a moment there was silence, before Dizzy reported a clean sweep and Gaelan grunted. “Nothing mechanical. Organic...it’s hard to say. The storm is getting worse.”
“Are we alone or not?” Drenno demanded.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I got nothing on the last ping, but it’s getting harder to tell. I’m 90% sure you’re on your own. Just hurry up. How’s Angela?”
“How’s Angela? What? She’s fine. Worry about your old man once in a while, would you? We're seeing evidence of skitters here,” he said. “Big ones, too, if they hauled in a Phase-drive. If no one’s here now, they were recently.”
“How long ago?” asked Angela, worried.
Winston answered. “A day, maybe more.”
Angela swallowed. “But that means...”
“They won’t have gone far,” Drenno finished. “Diz, I think we’ve got company. They might be scrambling your shit somehow, but Scepterists have been here. Might still be here—”
At that moment, the sound of booted feet echoed behind them. Drenno pulled his handcannon while Shimmer produced a small device that she flicked out like a nightstick. A row of segmented shards whipped out at either end, then clicked together to form two long, slim, silver-edged magnablades. Her left hand blazed with light, and when the brightness lessened a blue flame flickered in her palm. Angela backed up towards Drenno, turning slightly to hide her right arm and the Gauntlet behind her.
“Someone’s there!” Gaelan shouted across the commlink, but Drenno didn’t reply as a row of armoured soldiers trampled into view, long white rifles – like shard-slingers – trained on the team.
One was dressed slightly differently to the others. Same dark golden armour, like a hypersuit reinforced with carbon plates, but with a white line daubed across the full-face helm. This one was the officer, Angela guessed.
“Weapons down!” the leader barked, and Angela was surprised to hear a woman’s voice.
“You first,” Drenno retorted. Winston had vanished somewhere, but Angela couldn’t see where he had gone.
“Is this the Catalyst?” the office demanded.
“No, this is Rusty,” said Drenno. “She’s our new cook.”
“That’s her. Secure her.”
Angela backed up again, raising her left hand. “Wait! Wait! What is it you want? Please, before it ends in violence. Again.”
Drenno shot her a look, which she ignored.
“We want the device," said the Commander. “Her Majesty says only you can open this door.”
“How many bots did you burn out trying?” Drenno asked.
“Quiet!” the officer snapped before turning to Angela. “Open the door, and you can all leave. I’ve no orders to kill you, but I will if I have to—”
Drenno shot her in the head without warning, the bolt slicing cleanly through her helmet. He downed two others before any returned fire, and their ballistics were absorbed by an almost invisible disc of blue light that fanned out from the concealed device on his wrist. Angela, watched through the sudden flurry of violence as Shimmer seemed to flow forwards, gliding among the soldiers with a ferocious elegance. They tried to defend against her, but she moved like a rushing river, her double magnablade claiming two souls in one heartbeat. She pirouetted towards the blindly firing troops, sweeping her left hand out in a graceful arc that doused three of them in cold blue fire. They screamed as they fell, attempting to roll against the flames. Seconds later, they were still and smouldering.
Drenno darted forwards just as Winston appeared above the four remaining troops. The Captain levelled his cannon and fired directly at the mechanid, who emitted a short beam of light that seemed to cut the bolt in two, redirecting the halves left and right and eliminating a pair of soldiers. One of the remaining two panicked and opened fire at Angela, but she arced right instinctively, whipping out the Braid to send his gun clattering against the wall. As the soldier behind him dropped, he threw up his hands in surrender. Shimmer halted the swing of her blade less than an inch from the collar of his armour. Visibly trembling, he lowered himself to his knees in the dirt.
Drenno, his handcannon trained on the soldier, spoke to Angela over his shoulder. “The door. We need that artefact.”
For a moment she blinked from Drenno to Shimmer and back again. The fight had lasted less than thirty seconds, and nine soldiers were dead. Drenno’s whistle cut through her shock. She hurried over to the plinth and placed her hand on it, just as she had on Nix. Nothing happened and she swore.
“Gloves,” Shimmer told her, her voice ominously calm.
This time the room shook as she touched the plinth, light blazing through the carvings as the wall
began to shift, raining dust and shards of centuries-old debris. A chest lay in the darkened alcove beyond the wall, a square box, unadorned but intricate nonetheless. There were markings on it, and a latch with a strange moulding that looked like space for three fingers. Angela placed hers inside and the latch clicked, the lid springing open to reveal a collection of metal rings and a handful of dark shafts. Shimmer walked over, inspecting the engraving. “Soul Cradle,” she translated. Looking closer, she turned her masked face to Drenno. “The coordinates for the final part are here,” she told him.
“How many friends did you bring?” Drenno asked the soldier.
“Enough,” the kneeling man replied with a forced gallantry he clearly didn’t feel.
“Funny, a few turns back your commander was probably thinking the same thing. How many?” For effect, he shot the floor beside the man’s knee. He jumped, raising his arms higher.
“The Broken Halo is in orbit,” he shrieked. “Don’t kill me! Please.”
Drenno swore. “We gotta go, Angela. The Halo is Varo’s warship. Shimmer, help her with the... case.”
Shimmer retracted her weapon’s blades and extinguished the flame. She reverently closed the lid of the chest and then lifted it like it weighed nothing, slinging it up onto her shoulder.
“How many on the ground?” Drenno asked.
“Six squads, but there are none in this vicinity. We only knew the system, that’s all. Not the world, or which location to search.”
“How?”
“I d-don’t know. Rumour is they raided a few places for your... associates. I don’t know the details. Please. I’m just a grunt.”
Drenno tapped his databand. “Dizzy, we’re in trouble. Stay low and come pick us up.” He crouched by the soldier, lifting the man’s helmet off. He was young, human, handsome, but terrified. Drenno sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. To Angela, he suddenly looked deeply saddened. He pointed his gun at her, then said to the soldier, “You see her? You know what she is, right, you’ve been briefed.”