Jack Four

by Neal Asher

  He stared at me without reaction.

  Meanwhile Marcus had gone up to the door and as he drew it open, the crowd surged forwards. The woman with the broken arm reached him first and tried to push past, while Tanis and Betan weren’t far behind. The two guards shoved a few back while Marcus caught the woman by her jacket and casually tossed her back into the rest. Then he opened fire with his pulse rifle into the floor, the guards moving in either side of him.

  ‘If you want to die I can help you right here,’ he said, stepping forwards.

  The crowd shrank back from him. In that instant, he didn’t look human. He gestured to me sharply and I moved past him and the guards, through the door. As he stepped in behind, I got a last glimpse of Betan and Tanis and saw only anger in their expressions. I felt sick, empty. He closed the door.

  ‘You misread that,’ he said, walking along the short entry tunnel.

  ‘They want to escape,’ I said.

  ‘Like crowds pushing at the door in a burning building,’ he said.

  The analogy didn’t really apply and I questioned whether us taking this pod for ourselves was right. But the reactions of Betan and Tanis gave me a feeling of betrayal. He opened the next door into an airlock whose inner door stood open and we entered the pod. No grav in here but my boots automatically applied gecko function.

  ‘You wonder if we’re doing the right thing. You wonder if I’m doing the right thing,’ he said.

  Four acceleration chairs occupied this level of the pod, with another two in front of a control console and screen, for pilot and co-pilot if necessary. Presumably, by its dimensions, it had two other levels with a similar number of seats. Gel stasis tubes lined the walls, so maybe there was room here for a hundred people.

  ‘Yes, I question it.’

  He took one of the two seats in front of the console and I took the one beside him. He strapped in, so I did too.

  ‘Suzeal has been responsible for thousands of deaths. She’s the prime mover of the coring and thralling trade in this sector of the Graveyard and she didn’t just run it from this station. If she gets away, that trade continues.’

  ‘You’re telling me it won’t continue if we stop her?’

  I was conflicted and understood that the earlier simplicity of Jack Four the clone and his search for vengeance had, for a while now, been breaking up against hard reality. Things had ceased to be simple once I stepped beyond plain survival.

  ‘No, I’m not telling you that. But the trade will fragment and there’ll be infighting between wannabe replacements for her. That will make it easier for agents of the Polity to take it down.’

  ‘Agents like you,’ I said.

  He nodded once, but said no more, instead taking hold of a joystick and thrusting it forwards. The screen came on as, with a thump, the pod detached. A formation map came up on the screen overlaying what we could see, with our position indicated within it. He cancelled that and swung us away. Thrust punched me in the back. Slowly a distant dot swung into sight and began to grow: the docking moon.

  ‘We may face prador there,’ I said.

  ‘Which is why we’re not going to dock where expected,’ he replied, a slightly twisted smile to his face I wasn’t sure I liked.

  The dot steadily expanded. The moon had been mined and reformed so it no longer looked like a moon. Structural rings wrapped around it to attach the long protrusion of the dock, making it resemble the vast head of a stone mace, bound to a long metallic handle. Along this ‘handle’ ships had attached like buds along a branch and reminded me of the King’s Ship.

  ‘Do you see – at the far end of the dock?’ Marcus asked.

  I did see. Even now, escape pods were attaching to a section there – hundreds of them side by side, forming series of segmented lines along the dock.

  I also began to see damage and debris floating around the dock. Large patches were dotted along it, doubtless covering the holes the prador had cut to gain access. I noted its weapons emplacements, and others that looked like recent additions. One huge turret had to be the particle beam weapon the prador had been using. I reached forwards to the console and threw a frame up in the screen to give me a view back towards the station. It lay tilted to my perspective, so I could see the rim where escape pods were still departing, as well as part of the hub where, even now, a blast blew a plume of air and debris into vacuum.

  ‘I wonder how long Vrasan will try for?’ said Marcus.

  ‘Try?’

  He glanced at me. ‘Try to recapture and thrall the hooders.’

  Now I understood. ‘Until his own life is sufficiently threatened, I should think.’

  ‘My reading of it too,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Of course it is,’ I said.

  He gave me a speculative look and continued, ‘You know, by pissing off Vrasan and being a reachable representation of the Polity, you saved further lives.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Vrasan sent his prador against the rim barriers. How long do you think Trecannon would have held up against even just one hooder?’

  ‘Not very long,’ I replied. ‘But Vrasan didn’t make any tactical errors since he had achieved his objectives. Human lives are a matter of irrelevance to him.’

  ‘True enough.’

  ‘Which is why,’ I added, ‘he won’t leave the station until he’s made every possible effort to regain one of those objectives – the hooders. I expect he’ll lose a lot of his troops during those efforts.’

  ‘I expect so too.’

  It seemed pointless continuing the conversation, so alike did we think.

  He called up another view of the dock moon with its fuel silos, warehouses, accommodation units and other facilities built up on the bands of composite which surrounded it. On the screen he sketched vectors, making calculations. After a moment, he grunted with satisfaction.

  ‘She kept this place supplied with pure water, deuterium, cracked oxygen and hydrogen and even hydrocarbons. A lot of ships came here and she had fuel for all kinds, even some ancient relics, for which she charged a premium,’ he commented.

  ‘I’m not seeing any docking circlets down there,’ I said.

  ‘There are none. The fuel ships just mated here with injectors to offload their cargo.’

  ‘I presumed you were looking because we’re docking there.’

  He swung the view back to the dock. ‘Suzeal’s ship is here.’ He put a frame over the dock halfway along and expanded it. Attached there, belly down, was a sleek-looking craft, like a spike, with two large U-space nacelles to the rear and what looked like weapons pods protruding halfway along. He changed the view, again bringing up where the escape pods were docking, and set our course in towards there.

  ‘I thought we weren’t docking where expected,’ I commented.

  ‘We aren’t.’ He unstrapped and stood up. ‘There are a couple of spacesuits below provided for external repairs of the pods. We need to get into them.’

  I unstrapped and followed him down. ‘I suppose you’re going to use the usual dramatic technique of telling me as little as possible until the last moment?’

  He stopped and looked at me. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

  The lower deck had similar seating and gel stasis pods as above, but a sliding wall revealed two vacuum shell suits we could don over our envirosuits.

  ‘She’s stuck here at the dock until she can find a window for escape, but she’ll be dug in inside her ship. And she’ll have her people installed in the station itself to snipe at anyone who gets close. The ship itself will have its sensors looking out into space for any attack and weapons ready to be deployed.’

  ‘So pretty invulnerable to attack from just two men,’ I suggested.

  ‘Pretty much,’ he agreed. ‘But there’s a slice in between where she might be vulnerable. She’ll have antipersonnel weapons trained along the outside of the dock, but might not expect something bigger via that route.’

  The spacesuit was a hollow iron man which I s
tepped back into. It folded closed around me and immediately gave me a HUD detailing its assist, suit jets, atmosphere readings and all the other requisites of vacuum survival. I stepped out wearing it at about the same time as Marcus, and we headed back up. I felt safer now because the suit’s armouring offered a bit more protection. Very prador of me.

  ‘The airlock sits at the back, where the main thrusters of this pod are,’ he explained, now over com.

  The screen showed us drawing in towards where all the other pods were docking. Marcus strode forwards and began punching in new instructions. He grabbed the joystick and swung the pod round. Crosshairs came up on the screen, wavering until he locked onto a distant object along the dock. Thrust then sent me staggering, as the pod accelerated. He gestured towards the airlock and, picking up his pack, took out a sticky mine. I began to understand his plan, but would’ve preferred some discussion of it first. I picked up my weapon and pack and secured them to belt links on my suit, hurriedly opened the inner door of the lock and we stepped inside.

  ‘I calculate,’ he said, ‘that the atmospheric blast should slow us down enough for our suit jets to deal with the rest of the speed we’ll reach in … twenty seconds.’ He slapped the mine against the side of the outer door over the hinge. ‘You ready?’

  ‘Little fucking choice in the matter,’ I said.

  ‘True.’

  I didn’t like being this close to the mine, despite its blast being directed, but he didn’t move, so I stayed put too. My mind went into accelerated overdrive as the twenty seconds counted down, but I found I couldn’t even begin to get a handle on the calculations he must have made.

  ‘Are there airlocks—?’ I began, and the mine detonated.

  * * *

  My suit muted the explosion. The door swung out into vacuum, its hinge shattered, its locks tearing away. The atmosphere in the pod hit us from behind like a train and kicked us out. The door tumbled ahead and we tumbled after it. I got a glimpse of the pod departing, but relative to the dock we were still hurtling along only marginally slower than the thing.

  ‘Pull out,’ Marcus instructed.

  Using blink control and a wrist console, I selected the dock itself as the relative point to stabilize to, and the suit thrusters took over, correcting my tumble till I flew along, feet down, towards it. Marcus moved out from the dock and I fired up the thrusters beside my boots to follow him out. He pointed down and I looked in time to see the pod hurtling along towards Suzeal’s ship. A weapons nacelle on her ship protruded a railgun, which riddled the pod, causing it to leave a trail of fire. If any attackers had been inside, they’d have been be dead now. A miscalculation on Suzeal’s part, since the attack was the pod itself. Belatedly a missile spat out and the pod exploded, but still large debris crashed along the dock and into her ship, jouncing it sideways and ripping off one of the U-drive nacelles. As we passed over this mess, I set my thrusters to take me back down. We would be easier targets out here, if anyone was looking, and anyway, I wanted to act before Marcus told me to do so.

  ‘Ten seconds and then we decelerate, landing on the moon,’ he said, much to my irritation. Then, before I could pose the question I’d been wondering about before the door blew out of the pod, he answered it. ‘And yes, there are plenty of airlocks there.’

  We went lower and soon the ships and structures on the dock came between us and Suzeal’s ship, while the moon loomed before us. I fired up my suit’s thrusters to slow me. Marcus sent over a map indicating an area ahead and I had my suit prepare for that. I held out my arms and the suit locked them in place. Wrist, leg and chest thrusters fired all at once and, despite the padding, the deceleration crushed me into the front of the suit. But I slowed and soon regolith surged up towards me. At the last moment the suit swung, its assist kicking in, and dropped me down on my feet. Dust rose around me.

  ‘Come on,’ said Marcus.

  He stood just a few paces away, pointing towards one of the bands of composite that wrapped the moon. Standing on top of this were three large storage tanks and, running up the side of the composite, where he’d pointed, stood a ladder leading to an airlock. I set out in long bounds towards it, jumping at the last to take me halfway up its length. Grabbing hold, I scrambled up the rest of the way and headed for the airlock. Marcus arrived with a dusty thump beside me as I strained at the manual wheel. He’d used his suit jets. He grinned at me and punched a code into the console beside the hatch and it popped open. He gestured me in, since it only had room for one of us at a time. I stepped through the inner door onto a grated floor, no artificial gravity, just the light pull of the moon itself. Checking pressure, I saw it lower than ideal but manageable. A moment later he joined me.

  ‘We’ll keep the suits on for now?’ I suggested, opening my visor.

  ‘Yeah – they offer some protection.’ He opened his visor too.

  I huffed at cold air, felt the dearth of oxygen and then a moment later that faded as the oxygen transport effects of my boosting took over.

  As ever I let him take the lead and followed him along a walkway curving into the distance. Scattered along the tube, windows looked out onto the moon’s surface. It wasn’t much of a view.

  The corridor finally took a left turn into an area ringed with dropshafts and presumably bringing us to the base of the dock itself. Most of these were working, though in one section a wider and newer shaft had displaced two of them and I supposed the prador had come down here too. Of course they had – they would’ve wanted to ensure they were secure here. The shaft took us up just a short distance then out onto a curving grav floor, to bring us into consonance with the grav of the dock. We walked into an area like a great shopping mall, with corridors spearing on into the dock proper.

  ‘No prador,’ Marcus observed.

  ‘That’s good,’ I said, not sure it was.

  ‘If they all went to the station, you can guarantee they left something here to ensure this dock wouldn’t be used against them.’ Marcus confirmed my suspicions. We walked between malfunctioning fountains and ripped-up gardens dotted across a floor tiled with white and pale green pseudostone. Here and there I could see the results of Gatling fire and beam weapons, as well as human corpses. There weren’t many, but of course the prador wouldn’t have wasted such a delicacy. They ate human flesh and enjoyed it, not so much because it provided nutrients or, as I understood it, because it tasted any good to them, but because it came from intelligent enemies. I wondered if they’d killed everyone here, or just those who had resisted.

  ‘There.’ He pointed to one of the long corridors.

  ‘How close?’ I asked.

  ‘A mile up that way. She would have wanted to stay covert but she will still have defences in place.’ He grimaced. ‘And you can be damned sure she knows we’re here now.’

  ‘Why can you be damned sure of that?’

  ‘Because she would’ve wanted to see us die and then, knowing we didn’t, be sure what we’d do next. Or at least, what I would do.’

  Of course, she’d left cams in the siluroyne enclosure so she could watch.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘Her ship is damaged so she’ll want another one,’ he said. ‘She’ll be on the move along that corridor. We—’

  Something hit me hard and sent me tumbling in a ball of fire. I slammed into a fountain, visor automatically closed, and fractured diagnostics scrolling in my HUD. I tried to sit upright, but assist had locked. My suit was smoking, its plates warped and some rucked up from their underlay. It’d offered some protection but it hadn’t been a Polity combat suit. I looked around but couldn’t see much because smoke surrounded me. I did, however, see Marcus lying over to one side. My HUD finished its damage report and offered its only suggestion, but I didn’t want to take it because three figures were looming out of the smoke before me. I delinked my weapon from the suit, and just let it fall.

  ‘Now there’s a familiar face,’ said a familiar voice. ‘I’m going to enjoy this.’


  Brack stood there, in all his boosted and armoured barbarian glory, a heavy pulse rifle cradled in one arm and his stun baton in his other hand. Using blink control, I initiated the option my suit had given. It crumped and folded open and I peeled up out of it, grabbed my weapon and threw myself sideways. A shot from a laser carbine stabbed into the empty suit just behind me, flaming the interior as I rolled and came up shooting. I just had time to see the stun baton turning end over end through the air before it hit my shoulder, numbing my arm.

  ‘Don’t fucking kill him,’ Brack raged, slapping one of his compatriots across the back of the head. ‘Find the other one – this one is mine.’

  I hit the ground, grip sliding from my weapon as he strode towards me. He drew his machete and grinned evilly.

  ‘This is going to—’ he began, but I drew my sidearm left-handed and opened fire. The shots slammed into his armour, blowing pieces away and leaving smoking holes. I tracked up towards his face but he simply ducked his head away and turned his back on me. The shots in his back did little, so I aimed for his legs as I stood up. Then the clip emptied. I ejected it, stuck the gun in my right armpit, extracted another from my belt and inserted it. He stooped, picked something up, turned and threw. The tile hit me in the chest and I staggered back, the gun falling. I then turned and ran towards the nearest shopping centre.

  ‘Coward!’ he shouted.

  Brack was armed and no doubt stronger than me. He’d just used a stun baton that put me at a further disadvantage and I needed a few moments to get the feeling back in my arm. Instinctively, after a couple of seconds, I dodged to one side, and pulse fire tracked across the ground. He was going for my legs. He didn’t want to kill me with a shot in the back since that would be far too easy. He was the type who wanted me under his power for a while – that was his disadvantage. Glancing back, I saw him advancing confidently with the pulse rifle, machete sheathed again.

  I ducked through an arch into the shopping centre. The place had been pretty torn up and it was obvious a prador had been through here. Aisles had been pushed over, robot shopping trolleys and goods were strewn all over the place. I needed weapons, a weapon, any weapon. This didn’t look like the kind of place where guns would be conveniently shelved, but glancing at the signage, I did see a hardware section and headed straight there. More shots tracked up the aisle behind me. I dived into a gap between stacked boxes which, by the pictures on the outside, contained service eggs. As I crashed through the gap the boxes squawked, ‘Error code! Error code!’