Some kind of thermal weapon, Tag realized. Everywhere the orange lightning arced, drops of molten metal sprayed from the golems.
The Argo’s crew worked side-by-side with the Melarrey to defeat the last of the golems that had charged from the center of the ship. A final golem disintegrated, leaving the crew gasping for breath. The constant hum of the conveyor belts and the hammering of machines punching into metal was punctuated by the click of fresh batteries into pulse pistols.
Tag wanted to catch his breath. The healer in him wanted to examine Sumo, while his role as a captain meant he should probably be checking on the rest of his crew and making a plan to get them off this ship. But the stomping of the golems behind them gave him no time to do anything. There would be no reprieve from the advance of their regenerating opponents.
As they jogged away from the factory chamber, and Tag spotted movement on their left. He feared the golems were coming in for a pincer maneuver, attempting to surround them again. His heart settled when he realized the incomers were Bracken’s Mechanic forces. Two of them were limping, moving only with the aid of their comrades. They paused long enough for Bracken’s forces to converge with the others.
“We would not have lasted much longer,” Bracken said. “We can’t keep running indefinitely. This is getting to be an exercise in futility.”
“There are no other choices,” Jaroon said.
“We could stand and fight,” Bracken said. “Hold our ground until we take down the last one.”
“The way those things keep turning up, I doubt there is a last one,” Tag said.
He led the way into another chamber. This one was different from the warehouses and factories they’d encountered. All manners of crops were growing from what looked like carefully manicured rows. Plenty of fruits and vegetables Tag recognized grew alongside others that appeared to be from planets even more exotic than Eta-Five and the Forest of Light. There were bushes and trees and stalks jutting up all around the space, and the cloying fragrance of the various plants intermingling in the air sifted its way through Tag’s air filters.
“This is a welcome change of scenery,” Sofia said. “Not so depressing as the rest of this damn ship.”
Throughout the fields, huge pieces of equipment moved, dispensing water, pruning leaves, or tilling soil. Additional hovering golems seemed to be surveying the fields, occasionally dipping down to take a soil sample or clip off a leaf before drifting away through another hatch toward the end of the massive enclosure. While all kinds of machines operated through the fields, each specialized for a particular task as they maintained the agricultural space, Tag noticed one striking similarity between them.
There were no operators.
And try as he might, he couldn’t find any terminals either.
But something had to be controlling all these automated pieces of machinery. Something had to oversee the factories and foundries. And that something was probably also in command of the golems hounding them at every corner.
Tag looked at Jaroon, then Bracken. “We have to find the central command center. It’s our only hope of getting off this ship alive.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Nano-golems spilled into the fields, entering from corridors all around the giant agricultural chamber. They trampled the crops and tore through the bushes and trees as they charged straight toward the intruders. Other automated equipment continued working, either unaware or not caring their work was being ruined by the deadly machines.
“There!” Tag pointed to where he had seen a small hovering drone disappear into a hatch. It had taken with it a sample of some kind of purple, apple-like fruit. If they were going to find a computer system nearby, a laboratory seemed to be a good place to look.
He rushed ahead of the others as they began firing on the attackers. Energy rounds split the air, and flames danced over the waving grain and drooping trees caught in the flurry of crossfire. Smoke wafted up from the burning plants, the acrid scent seeping into Tag’s suit and overwhelming the formerly pleasant atmosphere of the agricultural chamber.
One of the Mechanics reached the hatch where the drone had disappeared before Tag did. The others followed, first the ragtag crew of the Argo and then the slower Melarrey.
It took a second for Tag’s eyes to adjust to the light, but he quickly realized this was not a laboratory for soil and harvest samples. The hovering golems followed a route that took them through the ceiling to some other destination. But though they hadn’t found the lab where the samples from the agricultural sector were being processed, they had certainly found a lab of some kind.
Huge tubes carried liquid to columns arranged throughout the lab. In each column Tag saw something suspended in the dark liquid. His heart began to climb into his throat as he approached one. He had the curious sensation of blundering into a place of worship. The liquid within each translucent column was murky, but Tag feared he already knew what would be hidden inside.
This place was eerily similar to the specimen storage room aboard the Hope.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” Sofia said.
Tag turned on his helmet-mounted lights to pierce the gloom within the chamber. A figure was suspended within, wrapped in cords and tubes.
Sofia gasped. Coren took a step back.
“It’s a human,” Coren said.
Mechanics and Melarrey spread throughout the room. They reported finding the same thing in other tubes.
The strange feeling he had back on the Hope, back when he had been prowling between the decaying bodies and fetid chambers of the alien zoo, gripped Tag once more.
“There were no humans on the Hope,” he said to Sofia.
“You’re right,” she said, her eyes wide behind her visor. “Alpha?”
Still holding Sumo’s limp form, Alpha was silent for a moment. “The data we recovered did not indicate anything regarding humans within the specimen storage files.”
“But Raktor confirmed that humans left the Hope only fifty years ago,” Coren said. “That doesn’t make any sense. If there were humans aboard the Hope long after the time the Collectors had taken it over and turned it into a space station, surely the Collectors would have studied and characterized them, too.”
Bull, standing nearby, stared back through the hatch they had come through. “No time for your mystery science discussion. Golems are almost here.”
A few Melarrey were perched in the doorway, sending waves of fire out into the attackers.
“Is there another exit here?” Sofia asked, looking around the lab.
The other Mechanics and Melarrey were scrambling around the bulkhead, searching for a way out. As each reported they could find no exit, Tag felt a leaden weight drag itself through his torso. He didn’t want to believe it. They hadn’t come this far without anything to show for it.
Maybe they still had a shot.
“Jaroon, keep your group at the hatch,” Tag said. “Hold it as long as possible. Bull, Gorenado, help them out. Bracken, I’ve got a job for your people.” He looked at the smooth bulkheads, then the columns, each home to a slumbering human form suspended by tubes and wires.
It was those wires that had drawn his attention.
“What do you have planned?” Bracken asked.
“Try forcing an exit through the wall,” Tag said. “You’ve got plasma cutters in your suits’ weapon systems, right?”
Bracken nodded. “We do, but these bulkheads look like the same material we saw in the ship bays.”
“Still, we’ve got to try.” Tag was desperate, and he knew the idea sounded crazy. But what else could they do?
Bracken appeared skeptical, but she still sent a squad of Mechanics to the opposite wall. Plasma jetted from their wrist-mounted weapons, carving into the bulkhead. If they could cut a hole just large enough and kept the nanomaterials back with their plasma cutters, they just might be able to escape.
And if that failed, Tag had another, even crazier idea. “I want another s
quad dismantling one of these tubes. All those wires and apparatus have to go somewhere, right?”
Now Bracken nodded vigorously. “And if they do, we can follow a hard connection to this ship’s network.”
“Exactly,” Tag said. “And...”
He let the words trail off. The whine of Mechanic plasma cutters clashed with the stomping feet of the approaching golems.
It seemed Tag’s darkest suspicions about this facility were right. The surge of golems sweeping into the fields was endless. No longer could he see the green foliage speckled with a rainbow’s worth of colorful fruits and vegetables. Instead all he saw were the dark forms of the golems swarming over the landscape like a flood of shadows.
Bull launched another thermite round, and sparks flew from the golems it hit. Several fell, lost under the trampling feet of the others around them.
“I’m out,” Bull said, dropping the launcher. He pulled out his pulse pistol and fired in concert with the Melarrey. Gorenado followed his lead, peppering the golems. But as frantically as the group’s defensive forces tried to fend off their enemy, there was no denying the inevitable collapse of their meager barricade. Even a wall of pure pulsefire wouldn’t stop their enemy now. The only thing that would change the tide of this battle was Bracken’s squad, toiling away without taking their eyes off their work.
“We can’t break through this,” one of the Mechanics at the bulkhead shouted. “It’s not working. No matter what we try, this thing is faster.”
“It heals as soon as we cut it!” another yelled.
Sofia locked eyes with Tag for a second. It was long enough for him to see what she was thinking. Worry and despair shot out at him from that glance. He felt it, too—a rising heat of anger coursed through him, battling with the icy grasp of dread.
No wonder the Hope had been taken by the Collectors. No wonder the Mechanics had fallen, so easily turned into Drone-Mechs, and the Melarrey had perished before they could put up too much of a resistance. This technology was more powerful than any of their races could have imagined. More relentless and frightening than Tag’s darkest nightmares.
A hulking golem made it to the lab’s entrance. It went down in a flurry of fire but was quickly replaced by another. The next golem managed to send one of the Melarrey flying backward into a bulkhead before the defenders tore it to slag.
“The polyglass isn’t self-healing!” a Mechanic shouted victoriously from the specimen chamber. Liquid began seeping out of the widening hole. A drizzle became a flood as the human within, along with the wires and tubes, was sucked out of the hole and poured across the floor.
The Mechanics bent to the wires, pulling them out of the human, showing no reverence for the man’s body as it lay pale and naked beside them. Tag didn’t blame them, not now. One of the Mechanics pressed a cut end of wire into the data port built into his wrist terminal.
“I’m picking up a—” The body of a Melarrey crashed into the Mechanic, sending them both tumbling backward. They fell in a jumble of armored limbs, liquid oozing out from broken joints in both their armor, and neither moved.
Another Mechanic struggled past them, reaching for the wire but was forced to duck when a second Melarrey was thrown toward them.
“Hold the line,” Jaroon bellowed, his cobalt armor reflecting the green light from his weapon.
Bull and Gorenado stood stalwart next to the Melarrey, with Sofia offering fire support.
“Alpha, help the Mechanics!” Tag yelled.
She scrambled over the wreckage near the broken suspension chamber, set down Sumo gingerly, and bent over the wire. Tag couldn’t watch for long. A whine like a sawblade chewing through wood screamed from the lab’s entrance. Tag only had a second to duck under another body being thrown backward.
“Bull!” he yelled as the marine sailed over his head.
The ranks of the golems pressed against the entrance, swinging and slicing as the defenders fired desperately, cursing in several different languages. Like an ocean swell, the golems crashed into them, threatening to overwhelm them. Once the golems made it in the lab, if Alpha or the Mechanics didn’t find a way to shut them down, it would be over.
Tag feared there wasn’t even a way to surrender to these automotons. He had led these people—Mechanics, Melarrey, and humans, all—straight to their death. And for all their sacrifices, they had achieved nothing. They had discovered no intelligence to send back to the SRE or Meck’ara. Nothing to warn the other races what they had seen here, what terrifying technologies the Collectors possessed. What they might yet unleash—if they weren’t already—on Earth.
“Don’t let them through!” Jaroon bellowed, radiating courage in the face of almost certain death.
Tag sprayed pulsefire into the torso of the nearest golem, and its body split into two overheated halves as more energy rounds riddled its flank, turning it into gobs of melted metal. Alpha worked frantically at the data connection to the broken stasis chamber with another Mechanic.
They just needed to hold out a moment longer. If they could keep the golems at bay for a few more minutes, Alpha would find a way to shut them down.
Then the line broke.
CHAPTER FORTY
The golems had no concept of mercy or restraint. Melarrey bodies flew past Tag. Gorenado slammed into a suspension chamber. Shattered glass pinged across the deck as the murky liquid spilled out, carrying with it the intubated body of a naked human.
All those still standing retreated, firing in waves at the golems. The voices of the Melarrey and Mechanics filled the comms in a disjointed din of curses and cries of pain. Bodies slammed together or smacked against bulkheads. More chambers spilled open like broken eggs, revealing the nascent embryos within.
Golems filled the chamber like darkness after a sunset. Tag watched in horror as the bodies of the Melarrey vanished under their masses. Then came Gorenado, still swinging his arms and firing. Tag saw the few last orange pulsefire rounds lance up from where the marine disappeared, then silence.
Tag backed away from the horde of shadowy machines. The meager pulsefire streaming from his pistol felt horribly inadequate as the monstrous forms descended on him.
“Alpha!” Tag said. “What’s going on?”
“I am trying!” Alpha replied.
Something touched Tag’s shoulder, and he spun to face Sofia. She stood next to him, sharing only a momentary glance, as they guarded Alpha and the Mechanics’ work. He thought he saw a wet sheen in her eyes, but he didn’t look long enough to confirm it. Couldn’t look long enough. The golems demanded his undivided attention. One by one, they overwhelmed the remaining defensive forces throughout the room.
“It was an honor to serve with you all,” Bracken said before disappearing in a wave of golems. Her anguished cry tore over his comm, and then she went abruptly silent.
“Come on, Alpha,” Sofia said. “It’s now or never.”
“Success!” Alpha said, standing up suddenly. “We have—”
A huge golem’s fist scooped her up.
“Looks like it’s never,” Sofia said before another golem grabbed her.
Tag was the last one standing. He dodged a grasping claw, then leapt over fingers scooping toward him. He wasn’t sure why he was continuing to fight, why he was trying to survive when everyone around him had been vanquished. But a tiny voice called at the back of his head, telling him he had to keep fighting. He had to make their efforts worth something. He somersaulted under another attacker, glancing at the wires Alpha had left behind, her wrist terminal still clamped to the data cable.
He could do this. He would do this.
His fingers stretched toward it, missed, and then he snatched the wrist terminal. The small holoscreen reported a stable connection with the ship’s network. Alpha had been working on a command that seemed like it would disable the ship’s defenses.
Tag ducked under another incoming blow and selected the command. His finger traced over the holoscreen, ready to initiate the
shutdown.
He never got the chance.
A golem wrapped its claws around him and tore him away from the wrist terminal. The device fell from his grasp. The claws cinched tighter, crushing the plates in his suit. A rib popped, and he yelled in agony. Nanomachines from the golem’s fingers crawled across him like ants and pierced the joints and filters in his suit. They trickled over his skin like water up his chest, then his neck, and then his face until he could no longer stop himself from screaming.
No sound came out. Just the creeping sensation as the nanomachines filtered into his helmet, soaking into the comms system poking into his ear canal and filling his HUD until he saw nothing but black.
He waited in the deafening silence for the golem to finish him off.
The agony in his chest turned to a dull throbbing as the painkillers administered by his suit kicked in. Still the drugs couldn’t quell the burgeoning pain in his head. He tried to speak, to call out over the comms for someone, anyone.
His voice seemed to die on his tongue, muffled by a ringing in his ears. His muscles tremored as he fought to push his arms out and break the grip of the golem. But he was locked into place, imprisoned in his own body.
Soon he felt the golem moving at a steady rhythm, carrying him out of the chamber. He could neither see nor hear, so he tried focusing on the one sense that seemed to be working normally: smell. His nose was filled with the scent of metal. He could taste it, too. Almost like he had been licking an alloy bulkhead or something. It had to be the nanomachines.
In his mind’s eye, he pictured them swarming through his flesh and into his bloodstream, poking at his cells and taking over his body. Maybe that was how the Collectors had accumulated so much information on other species.
Shattered Dawn (The Eternal Frontier Book 3) Page 20