Beckman nodded toward the inner sphere. “That’s where we’ll detonate.”
Markus furrowed his brow. Going into the open with so many repair drones in sight was madness, another indicator that Beckman’s judgment was fatally flawed. “You’ll have every robot in the ship after you, as soon as you show yourself.”
“Only way to be sure. That armor took a direct hit, and it’s still there.”
“But the doors are open now.”
“They might close faster than we can destroy it. Or there could be an energy shield down there,” Beckman said. “I’ve only got one shot, and I’m not going to waste it.”
Before Markus could answer, a heavily armored battloid emerged from behind the central sphere. They all froze in the shadows as the deadly machine glided slowly around the sphere’s mid section, passing through the swarm of maintenance drones like a black shark through goldfish. It glided beneath several repair drones laboring to remove a melted armored door from the inner sphere, deviating from its patrol route just enough to avoid a collision, then once past, the battloid slid back onto its patrol route. They watched as it completed its circuit, passing behind the inner sphere only to reappear on the same path as before.
When it passed out of sight a second time, Beckman said, “There’s only one.”
“One’s enough!” Nuke said.
“As soon as you set foot out there,” Markus said, “Those little worker bees will call for mama.”
“I know,” Beckman said, measuring the distance across the nearest pylon walkway to the inner sphere. The battloid would be on them before they were halfway across.
* * * *
Dr McInness’ eyes were transfixed by an impenetrable spherical blackness floating amidst a swirling disk of brilliant light. The blackness was an utterly featureless expanse masking a stellar beast more than two and half million times more massive than Earth’s sun. The super massive black hole was ringed by an accretion disk of hot glowing gas, torn from hundreds of dying stars, and sprinkled with the debris of countless shattered worlds, now ripped apart by immense tidal forces. Spiraling inexorably towards the disk were more than a dozen stars, tiny glowing spheres that had lost all hope of escaping the graveyard of the galaxy. Slivers of hot gas snaked from the doomed stars down into the whirlpool of light, warning that the star’s own gravity was being overpowered by the colossus beneath them. Gone were the worlds that had once circled these condemned stars, long since wrenched from their orbits by the cosmic reaper’s super gravity. Closer to the event horizon of the super massive black hole, differential gravity forces had destroyed all solids, reducing matter to its constituent atoms, while frictional heating raised the temperature to extreme degrees.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Vamp said in a low voice from beside the entry. She had one ear aimed toward the passage outside, listening to the click of approaching metallic footsteps.
“Not now,” Dr McInness replied from a trance like state as he rotated his hand slowly, fast forwarding the recorded imagery. The probe’s perspective dived past the doomed stars into the blinding glare of the accretion disk, forcing them to shield their eyes, then the probe passed into an impenetrable, featureless blackness. “We’re inside the event horizon!”
“Incoming,” Vamp declared urgently as the metallic clicks grew louder.
“Do you know what this means?” he asked, eyes riveted ahead.
Timer looked around at the featureless blackness on all sides. “A power failure?”
“They’ve explored the super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy! How could they overcome the gravity, the time dilation? How did they get a signal back? It’s impossible! But they’ve done it!”
Vamp stepped toward the scientist. “Save it, Doc, we’re out of here.”
“Just a few more minutes!” The blackness melted into a yet deeper blackness that funneled away to a distant grayness. “My god! It’s an Einstein-Rosen Bridge!”
“I don’t care if it’s the Brooklyn Bridge, we’re leaving!” She lifted him out of the chair, breaking his link to the log system. The view surfaces dissolved into featureless gray.
Dr McInness tried to resist her grip. “You don’t understand. That was a bridge to another universe. We have to see where it leads!”
She dragged him up onto her shoulder. “Virus, we need a way out of here.”
Virus jumped into the chair, pulled the schematic up and drilled in to their location. “There’s a gravity lift on this level, fifty meters away.”
“Let’s go!” She said, starting for the opposite exit.
Bandaka darted through the narrow archway, searching for any sign of movement ahead. Vamp followed with Dr McInness slung over her shoulder, still protesting. When the seekers reached the access corridor on the far side of the log room, Virus rolled a hand grenade toward the control chair, then he and Timer raced after the others. The grenade exploded as the seekers entered, knocking them off their feet, buying a few seconds.
Bandaka jogged past an alcove he didn’t recognize, searching for an elevator.
“Bandi, back here,” Virus called as Vamp and Dr McInness stepped onto the gravity plate and vanished.
Bandaka came back, giving the alcove a wary look. Timer pushed the hunter onto the gravity plate as two weaponized seekers appeared at the log room exit carrying shields and cannons. He spotted other armed seekers entering the log room behind them, then fired his special, forcing them to raise shields. Virus and Timer jumped onto the elevator together as the seekers returned fired. In an instant, they found themselves in a long rectangular hall lined with alcoves. It was the meeting point of dozens of grav lifts from all over the ship. Bandaka and Vamp ran through a large archway at the end of the hall, the only exit from the transport hub.
“Wait!” Virus called, motioning to the other gravity lifts, but it was too late. They’d already vanished through the arch.
Timer and Virus hurried after them into a large circular room. Every wall was lined with view screens and control consoles while in the center were two command consoles placed side by side. Wide bodied chairs stood vacant before each console, indicating that when in use, the control room was manned by more than twenty officers. Two view screens on the left side were active. One displayed a sleek triangular vehicle capable of interplanetary flight, the other a smooth walled octagonal structure with vertical slit windows that could withstand the pressure of thousands of atmospheres. Both images were surrounded by fluidic characters that detailed the technical specifications of each. No one wondered why the screens and their terminals were active, or noticed a slight blurring movement pass in front of them.
Vamp turned slowly looking for an exit. “Anyone see a way out?”
“You mean, apart from the dozen elevators out there?” Timer asked, glancing back through the archway. A body armor clad seeker appeared in the elevator alcove. “Which, now we can’t use!”
Timer fired his special while Virus opened up with controlled bursts from his M16. They struck the seeker’s two small shields harmlessly, then Virus lowered his aim, shattering its knee joint. The seeker’s leg locked at an awkward angle as it staggered out of the alcove and fired. A blue bolt shot toward them, shaving Timer’s Kevlar helmet, dissolving one side of it like butter. He dived backwards, ripping his helmet off, staring wide-eyed at the tear along its side, and feeling the singed hair on the side of his head.
“Close the door!” Vamp yelled, lowering Dr McInness onto his good foot.
Virus stepped out of the line of sight of the approaching seeker, searching for a way to close the door, straining to recall an implanted memory that might help. There were no wall controls, he was certain of that. Through the fog of implanted memories, a muddled thought drifted through his mind. It told him they used low frequency sound waves to communicate with the ship, and that it meant there were no door controls.
Another implanted thought surfaced in his splintering mind: Access is a command function. It
was a simple rule, something even lessers could be trained to understand.
Virus approached the command consoles in the center while Timer fired short bursts through the archway from behind cover. He remembered that the aliens were hierarchical, much more socially stratified than man. Some were born to command, others to obey and hunt. The memory seemed important as he studied the consoles. They were made of the same glassy black surfaces he’d seen in the beetle. The mere sight of them made him nauseous and started his head pounding anew, but he forced himself to focus. He passed his hand over the nearest console, then watched as a series of swirling interconnected hoops formed. The symbols were vaguely familiar, yet their meanings remained elusive.
Behind him, the crippled seeker hobbled sideways as Timer raked its legs again, and Vamp knelt and fired through the doorway. A second seeker appeared in the alcove, then darted across the hall before they could target it, a sure sign they were sharing tactical information. The two seekers moved to opposite sides and approached outside their line of fire as a third appeared in a different alcove with shields raised directly toward them, ready to deflect their gunfire.
“They’re networked!” Vamp said.
Timer stuck his weapon into the doorway and fired. “I noticed,”
“Virus, if you’re going to do something,” Vamp called, “Now would be good!”
“I’m trying,” Virus said as he gave up on the first panel. Whatever he was looking for, it wasn’t there. He activated the second command console and watched as a series of diamond shapes rotated around each other, glowing white and yellow. Suddenly one of the symbols caught his eye.
Command matrix? The thought appeared in his head, even as he realized he didn’t really know what a command matrix was. Fear washed over him as he knew the time had come to put his hand into the console. He moved his hand towards the console, then hesitated as three more seekers appeared in different alcoves. They sped across the hall to join up, forming a wall of shields.
“Virus!” Vamp yelled, knowing the seekers were about to charge though the archway.
He swallowed and plunged his hand into the console and touched the symbol. A red and black multilayered grid appeared. Most of the symbols were meaningless, except for an hour glass shaped swirl. Command functions! He touched it, exploding the grid into another matrix. More incomprehensible symbols appeared, then one he recognized. Security! He stabbed at it. Sweat beaded on his face as a new grid of indecipherable pictograms flashed into existence. He had a mental picture of the symbol he sought, but it wasn’t displayed. Another symbol caught his eye. Not what he was looking for, but he realized it would do. He touched the glyph with his finger, then the control room door snapped shut, as did hundreds of other security doors guarding command level interfaces throughout the ship.
From within the tortured recesses of his mind, Virus realized the security level of this console made it difficult to override. An eminent caste officer could have done it, but only after she’d passed a DNA authentication scan. Even the Command Nexus could not override a security command from that location, the inner sanctum of the ship’s rigid hierarchy.
Virus pulled his hand from the console and stepped back with relief, glad to put distance between it and himself. “We’re safe. For now,”
“You cut that close,” Timer said, turning toward him.
A blue bolt flashed across the room, striking Timer square in the chest. It blasted through his Kevlar body armor like paper, vaporizing his chest and melting the wall behind him. Timer blinked, then crumpled, dead before he hit the floor.
Virus dived sideways, rolling as he brought his gun around.
Vamp turned toward where the shot came from. There couldn’t be another entrance, as every wall space was occupied by view screens and consoles. She realized the shot had been fired from inside the control room. “Stealther!” she yelled as a faint distortion to the right caught her eye.
She switched to full auto and raked the room with tracer, blasting consoles and screens across half the control room. Virus saw her bullets spark against an invisible shield, and focused his fire on the same target. When Vamp’s magazine emptied, she dropped her M16 and pulled her Tom Thumb from its holster and started blasting super heated plasma at it. Electric blue lines of force crackled around an egg-shaped photon field, then it collapsed, revealing an alien in a dark suit, holding a bent, baton-shaped weapon.
Nemza’ri knew they could see her, but she was safe while her personal shield held. It gave her a huge advantage, but she had to kill the hot bloods quickly and get to the flight deck where her equipment would be waiting. The wall screens told her the nano fabricators would have the interplanetary vehicle ready in less than twenty minutes, while the habitat that would be erected at the bottom of the Mariana’s Trench would be finished twelve minutes later.
In her mind, she ‘saw’ her weapon’s recharge indicator climb rapidly as it powered up for another shot. The indicator was linked to her combat implants via her nervous system, making it as much a part of her body as her hand.
The alien aimed the baton at Vamp, but before she could fire, Bandaka threw his boomerang at her. Its rhythmic beating of the air distracted the alien, who turned toward it.
Virus, realizing their weapons were useless, jumped to his feet and charged. The boomerang hit the alien’s shield and fell harmlessly to the floor, then Virus threw his body against it. His Kevlar body armor struck the shield as if he’d hit steel plate, but he kept pushing and found that he slowly sank into it. His body tingled as he pushed through the shield and caught the alien’s wrist with one hand.
Nemza’ri tried to twist free, but the hot blood clung desperately to her. Its strength was surprising, even if its attack was absurdly physical. By nature, her kind were predators, but they had long ceased to practice primitive forms of combat based on biological strength. With a shock, she realized her body, weakened by the sterilization antidote, might actually be overpowered by this semi intelligent animal now wrestling with her through the shield.
Virus sensed the alien’s movements were strangely awkward, as if it didn’t know how to break his grip. With a spark of hope, he realized the alien was not used to hand-to-hand combat. He pushed its weapon hand away as he got his other hand to its throat and squeezed, finding that while the suit looked like material, it had the strength of steel.
She flashed a cry for help through her cerebral implants to the Command Nexus. The response was immediate. Every armed unit outside the Nexus Chamber instantly abandoned its current mission, and raced towards the control room. She twisted her weapon hand, trying to free it, to angle the weapon at the hot blood’s chest, but it threw its greater weight against her, forcing her back.
Virus planted one foot on the deck, slid his other foot behind its ankle, and knocked its legs away. The alien tripped, falling against the console, triggering its proximity sensor. He hesitated as a subliminal whisper instructed him to release the exalted being before him. One of its shoulders sank slowly into the panel as Virus glanced at Timer’s body, using the sight of his friend’s corpse to fight his uncertainty. With renewed determination, he slid his hand toward her face, determined to push her head into the console.
Nemza’ri felt the command interface connect with the neurons in her shoulder. None of her implants were configured to communicate with the interface through that part of her nervous system. Desperately, she tried to reprogram her control implants while she wrestled with the angry hot blood. Its hand passed over her mouth. She curled her lips back and bit its hand, tasting blood. It was salty, and sour, but not unpalatable. It stimulated an ancient survival instinct that pumped a hormone many times more powerful than adrenalin through her system. The primitiveness of it surprised her, but she felt her strength surge!
Virus felt pain explode through his hand as razor sharp teeth sliced through his palm. He ignored the pain, fighting desperately, telling himself they were dead if the alien got free. He’d thought for a moment he wa
s the stronger, but not by much, then its strength tripled in a heartbeat. His hand to hand combat training gave him an edge, giving him moves the amphibian lacked, but its small teeth were deadly weapons that could easily shred his soft skin. The alien began to rise away from the console, straining to sink its teeth into his neck.
Bandaka jumped up onto the console chair behind him and slid his spear over Virus’ shoulder, into the shield. He drove its deadly point down toward the alien’s head, pushing his spear toward its bulging eyes.
Nemza’ri bared her teeth, ready to tear the hot blood’s vulnerable throat open when the crude wooden weapon jabbed towards her eyes. Instinctively, she recoiled, incredulous that her life could be threatened by a sharpened stick! She recoiled, instinctively pushing her head away from the spear point. The back of her head touched the console interface, allowing its quantum electric field to short out the implants in her cerebellum. Vast sections of her data net vanished, and the reprogramming of her interface implants ended abruptly.
She tried to ping the console, to shut it down, but her sonar lobe was facing away from the consoles sonic sensor. The spear point continued pushing toward her eyes, forcing her head back into the console. She knew what was about to happen to her brain and the implants embedded within it. The Command Nexus, seeing it all through her eyes, had started to power down the console, but the shut down procedure was too slow. They both knew there wasn’t time to save her. She had no choice but to shut down all her implants but one.
The last implant, she used to trigger unconsciousness, to save her mind from being overloaded by the console’s interface.
The Mothership Page 38