by Neal Asher
While the bulk of the prador force hung above the floor in the centre of the transit area, others set about tasks elsewhere. Unlocking my hands, I pushed over to a dray nearest to the outside and crouched behind it. A group of five prador were up by the hole in the roof. Two had large tanks on their backs and wielded gun-like devices, reminding me of the flamethrower the prador had used against Marcus aboard the King’s Ship. Others outside were manoeuvring a large cylinder towards the gap, shifting it until it protruded halfway through. They folded across struts from the thing, then the flash of welders secured them. The three inside, without the tanks on their backs, unwound some mesh into the gap between the cylinder and roof and fixed it in place, then the first two opened fire with jets of white fluid. This spread out along the mesh and around its edges and, by the time they’d finished, a great dripping white mass, like mucus, filled the hole around the cylinder and bulged out into vacuum. I checked my readouts and saw atmospheric pressure rising. One of them tossed an object into this mass. From the point where it landed, the substance retracted to the mesh, smoothed, turned yellow and hardened. Pressure continued to rise, though very slowly. I guessed most of the ventilation ducts to here had closed, and the air was only building up from faulty ones which hadn’t. But why did the suited prador require air?
A glance along the transit area told me why. Groups of prador had set to work on the larger bulkhead doors. Of course, they wouldn’t want explosive decompressions perpetually slowing them. The air was for their convenience, and no altruism was involved here. They retreated from one door and explosives detonated behind them. The door blew inwards on hinges, bent out of shape, then the pressure beyond swung it back. The air shrieking round its distortions came as a distant wail. The prador advanced on it and as one steadily pushed it open again, welders flared for them to fix it against the wall of the tunnel beyond. The wail grew in volume as greater air pressure in here began to transmit more sound. Another door blew, and then another and the pressure began to climb steeply. They only opened the larger doors. It made sense to concentrate on those they could actually get through.
Then grav came back on. The prador juddered in place but didn’t drop. They must have used some kind of EMR weapon to knock out grav and had now shut that down. Next they descended and assembled into neat ranks. One of the Guard landed before them – I recognized him by his armour as one of those who’d entered Vrasan’s sanctum to find him … injured. He began pacing before the gathered troops to clatter and bubble instructions at them. Above, weapons fire flashed all around the inner rim of the hub, so it was likely the force here was just a small part of the whole I’d seen aboard Vrasan’s ship. Suzeal’s reign was at an end, and the time had come for me to achieve my next limited objective, namely, rescuing Marcus. I moved out from the dray and over to the wall. Even with chameleonware on, I used available cover to head towards one of the blown-open bulkhead doors. Then all the prador paused in their tasks to tilt and look up with their main eyes. I looked up too.
Prador were still outside but now others had arrived. Something black snaked above and across. The inner door of the large cylindrical airlock opened to reveal a shimmershield within. The hooder nosed through the kaleidoscope of light, then, like a giant parasite dropping out of some fruit, it slid down into the transit area. It snaked across the air as if across a solid surface, unaffected by gravity, and seemed to have brought some of that shimmer with it. Lines of light, or energy, or some kind of force field, traversed its length as it began to settle towards the floor. The prador below scattered, either running or firing up the grav-drives in their suits to get out of the way. Just a few feet above the floor, its lights went out and it dropped with a heavy thump. By now another was coming through from above and yet another queued up behind that. I watched rapt, scared and horrified. Prador were bad enough, but this?
They didn’t seem completely under control, for one of them darted at a prador and sent him tumbling through the air to crash down against one wall. Another whipped round, the shimmer spilling from its front end and an odd pink meniscus shooting through the air to hit another prador. The victim simply disintegrated, coming apart at every joint and its main carapace flying open at a horizontal break, then everything inside the armour spraying out in a glutinous fog. Prador opened fire on the creatures, Gatling slugs rattling and zinging off them, a particle beam stabbing in and splashing against another meniscus. Orders clattered in the air and, after a few more shots, the prador retreated all the way to the walls. Then, through the airlock above came one I recognized: Vrasan. The moment he entered, the hooders dipped their spoon-shaped heads against the floor and froze in place.
What have I done? I asked myself. But then I tried to harden my resolve and dismiss the question. I’d brought war to force Suzeal to concentrate her troops around the hub, and given those who’d reached the rim a chance to escape. I couldn’t control it and shouldn’t feel guilty about making a choice that allowed the greatest number of innocents to survive. It was precisely as Marcus had said: no easy answers. It seemed an appropriate reminder when, moving on, I stepped over the bloody and bulging-eyed corpse of one of the thralled, still holding on with his death grip to some pedestal-mounted coms terminal. I’d killed him, and had yet to see any of those I had perhaps saved.
The nearest door opened into a tunnel twenty feet across, ribbed down its length like some reptile’s gullet. Two prador crouched before it, utterly focused on the three hooders. My suit warned me of high-phase scanning just for a second, then that faded out. A moment later, it offered me ‘Anomalous Energy Signatures’, which presumably came from the hooders. I crouched behind the terminal watching the things. The thrall technology affixed to their bodies stood clear and it seemed Vrasan had restored some, if not all, of their war machine past. They’d already used field tech that no part of me recognized. What else were they able to do? Could they see me? I comforted myself with the idea that Vrasan’s control of them seemed rough at best and that he’d now shut them down to stop them killing his own kind. I ran for the tunnel. One of the prador flicked his stalked eyes round, perhaps hearing me or detecting an air disturbance, but did no more.
I entered the tunnel and kept running, after about fifty yards slowing to a walk. Atmosphere pressure was now high enough for me to unseal my suit. Checking the power supply showed me that it was down to below half, and that was being eaten away as the suit recharged itself with air. Shutting that down, I opened the visor, huffed at the thin air, and a strong smell of something like burned electronics hit my nostrils. A little further ahead, smaller atmosphere doors had slid into place in the tunnel wall. The console beside one of these showed its safety setting still on. It wouldn’t open while the pressure on my side remained lower than on the other side. However, with a little reprogramming to show a human was operating the console, and that it hadn’t developed a fault, I’d be able to open it. My fingers froze over the touch screen as a hissing clattering movement reached my ears.
I turned. The hooder had approached without me hearing it and halted just ten feet away. Perhaps the sound was of its feet contacting the floor? Vrasan stood at the far end of the tunnel. Could he see me? Or could he see me through whatever access he had to this creature’s senses? I gazed at it, rapt. If it could see me then no time remained to alter the programming of the console, and running was no option either. The fact it had halted here told me it must have seen me. Its armour now looked slick rather than the matt of those on the planet. Waves of iridescence ran over it and it emitted the hum of power as of a large fusion reactor. The burned electronics smell grew stronger and now I realized its source. The creature shivered, briefly, then in one slow smooth motion raised its spoon head from the floor.
The nightmare underside revealed its manipulators, terminating in the kind of tools usually found on an autosurgeon, writhing black tentacles and two rows of hellish red eyes. I reached back in motion equally slow and pulled the multigun forwards from its position besid
e its pack. Was I trying not to startle the beast? I had no idea. Only then did I realize that of course the thing could see me because my visor was still open. I made no effort to close it, and again didn’t know why. Only one option could help me in this situation. I felt my way down to the bottom button behind the main trigger and pressed it. The hooder shivered again, as if in pleasurable anticipation. I raised the weapon and aimed by sight, then pulled the trigger.
Suit assist kicked in immediately, with computing obviously linking it to this option on the gun. The rail beader emitted a long sonic cracking and down at the end of the tunnel Vrasan, my target, disappeared in a cloud of hot impacts, pieces of his armour fragmenting. Even with assist working, the weapon’s recoil picked me up and flung me backwards, spraying both tunnel and hooder with further shots. I landed on my arse as the hooder went wild. It thrashed from side to side, smashing great dents in the wall, pink menisci shooting away from its body and, where they hit, turning composite into embered explosions. I doubted I had killed Vrasan and felt sure he would soon reassert control. I turned, still on my backside, and fired on one of the smaller doors. I watched it fold up and tumble into the corridor beyond as recoil slid me up against the further wall. I leapt up and ran for the door, diving through as the hooder’s head knifed into the wall just beside it and with a wrenching crash slid across, tearing out the door frame.
Shoulder rolling to come upright, I ran along a corridor too narrow for the beast, hoping the surrounding structure would slow it. The crashing continued behind me. One glance back showed it twenty feet into the corridor, a mess of twisted beams and wall panels on either side of it. Then it stopped, and I stopped too at a junction. The beast wavered where it was, then lines of light sped up its body to converge at its nose. I turned down the side corridor and ran on as a blast ripped up the corridor behind. The shock wave sent me stumbling and molten metal and burning composite rained past. I kept going, not inclined to stop again until utterly sure I’d got away.
Half an hour later I rested, gasping against the cowling of a fusion reactor. I was shaking and felt as if I wanted to throw up, but it seemed the boosting process hung onto the food in my guts. I closed up my visor to check for damage via my HUD.
And that was when the comlink menu of the suit came up. I stared at it in bewilderment, sure that when I last checked the only link available to me had been Marcus. Now another had appeared. I hesitated over allowing it, since while such a link remained open the sender could locate the receiver. But curiosity won out.
‘Once again,’ said Vrasan, ‘you have interfered in my plans.’
His appearance showed the damage to his armour, but there was something odd about the image too. He hung in what might have been a virtuality of black and red movement, ghostly carapace segments revolving and sliding in and out of each other. He shouldn’t have been able to obtain the link address to me by conventional means, yet he had. Somehow he’d worked through the hooder technology to send a link request. This worrying development bespoke a degree of com penetration of which I had no knowledge.
‘I also destroyed the railgun so you could attack the station,’ I replied.
He paused for a long moment, then snapped a claw in comprehension. ‘I see, you draw Suzeal’s forces back to the centre so the other humans can escape at the rim.’
He was annoyingly percipient.
‘Now you are here and, from what I’ve seen, will soon control the station,’ I said. ‘Your plans are reaching fruition.’
‘They are, but that does not change the plans I have for you, Jack.’ He began to fade out. ‘I will, as you say, soon enough control this station. If you survive what is to come, I will find you, for I’ve now decided you have become a very special project for me.’
‘Surely you have more interesting concerns?’ I replied.
‘It is good to hate,’ said Vrasan, and closed the link.
I pushed away from the reactor cowling and ran. I didn’t think he would hunt me right then, but wasn’t sure. There could be no escape. Once Vrasan controlled the station, he controlled this system, and he could hunt me down at his leisure.
I stepped out onto the balcony with my chameleonware back on, after resting it for a while and allowing my suit to recharge on my route here. There was too much activity in the park, and in the air above it, for me to step out here unconcealed. The prador were advancing on the ground behind shield generators, occasionally rising into the air to try and get something in over the shields of Suzeal’s forces. They only occasionally risked this option because launchers on two of the robots were high-powered railers spitting out armour-piercers. One hit a prador, with the flash of impact, then, after a brief pause, the creature’s armour parted horizontally on an explosion. The prador armour was toughened with exotic metals that couldn’t be found on any old elementary table, so the missiles had to sport equally exotic nose cones, high-temperature vaporant and an ensuing metallized hydrogen charge. Such things I knew.
The remains of the prador fell out of the sky – a victory for Suzeal’s troops – but then one of the human-controlled shield generators blew and two prador zoomed forwards, Gatling cannons shrieking and particle beams stabbing. Over twenty human fighters turned to bloody and burning mist before another missile streaked out and tossed one of the prador across the ground – the charge detonating outside its armour but making a dent deep enough to crush it to pulp inside. Next, BIC lasers stabbed down from the balconies opposite and the prador opened fire at them, rubble raining down. Voices in the building behind me drew me back inside. A man, heavily armoured, came opposite the open door.
‘In here,’ he said.
I moved to one side as another soldier came in, towing a sled loaded down with a pulse cannon and heavy power supply. They headed for the balcony and began to set the device up. I’d gone out through the door by the time the missile struck. The apartment filled with fire and the wall I dodged behind bulged out as the fire spewed from the doorway. I moved on down the corridor as the two men staggered out swearing, smoke pouring from their armour.
‘I think it’s time to leave,’ said one.
‘Nice idea, any plans on how?’ said the other.
‘The only way we have left,’ came the reply.
I moved on to the stairs and down. After they ended, and with the power out, I used the ladders down the sides of the dropshafts. In an alley beyond, my suit immediately alerted me to scanning. I’d seen a few fights before this one, mainly skirmishes in the main tubeways of the station, but had yet to see anyone using chameleonware. It could have been because of the scanning – no one wanted to take the tactical risk of relying on something that could fail at any moment. But it still struck me as odd. Perhaps it was one of the foibles of the troops who’d signed up with Suzeal, but more likely her paranoia didn’t allow it in the station. The prador of course didn’t have anything to do with such cowardly technology. They wanted to see their enemies and their enemies to see them. They also tended to have a highly disposable attitude towards their troops.
I shut down my ’ware since, being behind the human lines, anyone would assume me on their side. I headed out at a walk, fired a few shots towards the prador for form’s sake, then set off at a steady trot towards the rear. I tried to put on the appearance of someone with an important task to perform. Others weren’t bothering with that and were just running as fast as they could. Two of them went over in a hail of pulse gun fire from their own side, and I halted, raising my hands towards the shooters, then pointing back behind me urgently. After a moment, I banged a hand against my helmet. Obviously I had a com malfunction. They hesitated, but turned away because bigger problems than deserters had just arrived. The hooders. I accelerated and used suit assist too.
Even from behind, the light intensity of the weapons fire darkened my visor, while the noise ramped up so high my suit started to dampen it. Blast waves buffeted me and sent me stumbling, chunks of hot metal raining down all around. The suit reporte
d numerous shrapnel hits then one on my thigh sprawled me face down, just ten yards from the dropshafts at the end. I rolled over and looked back.
Two hooders writhed in front of the human lines, beating against hardfields and fending off a constant fusillade of missiles, slugs and beam strikes. The combination of pink menisci and amber hardfields gave the impression of them being caught at the centre of giant, ever-turning gems. A hardfield generator eventually exploded and one of the hooders took advantage of the opening with a weapon I had not seen before. White beams stabbed down from every segment of its body, slicing through soldiers and machinery with equal ease. Where they tracked, the floor boiled and exploded, flinging up dismembered fighters and chunks of robots. Another hardfield collapsed, its generator bouncing towards me emptying its molten interior. It came to rest fifty feet away and even at that distance I could feel the latent heat collapsing it into a lambent pool that melted a hole through the floor. I watched all this for longer than necessary, then got up, ran to the hole and jumped in. Twenty feet down, I hit another floor where the molten metal spread and cooled. That gave way underneath me and I dropped again, but slower now in a rapid reduction of grav, and hit another floor in a rain of red-hot gobbets. I hurled myself aside. Coming up into a squat, I shrugged at my delay in escaping. I’d watched for so long because the scene, as horrible and destructive as it had been, had also been startlingly beautiful.
The far wall contained a row of shaft mouths too small for a human being, while I stood between two of the rows of conveyor belts leading to them. Glancing at the items on those belts, I saw squat cylinders of polymer, their ends rounded and interiors packed with goods by the multi-armed robots, now stooped over dead, at the far ends of the belts. This stuff was manufactured by the city of matter printers and other fabricators lying beyond. I’d effectively fallen into one of the station’s supermarkets. The people who lived here, or had lived here, ordered their goods at a terminal and they arrived just a little while later by pneumatic tube.