Provider Prime: Alien Legacy

by John Vassar

  “Why am I not surprised. Is there an inventory of vehicles on the base?”

  ‘There is a full inventory available. All vehicles are subject to FedStat safety and maintenance procedures.’

  “Of course they are. Please list all those capable of lunar surface or space operation.”

  ‘There are two Widgeon-class survey vehicles, two Snipe-class transport and rescue vehicles and one Semi-Autom Tractor Unit.’

  They were already in the fastest thing that Hirayama-Y had to offer.

  ‘Can We assist further?’

  “Please continue to monitor coms across the base. Is Agent Charlis still at Cytec T-13?”

  ‘Affirmative. There has been no further coms to or from Agent Charlis since Our last communication.’

  Mitchell smiled to himself. No need to keep upgrading his Networker now it would seem. Just ask and you shall receive.

  ‘Mitch? You still with us? You look miles away, mate.’ Jake Dunne had set the autopilot and left the cockpit to stretch his legs.

  ‘Just reviewing my options. How much longer?’

  ‘Another thirty I’m afraid. Sit back and enjoy the ride, mate. Thank you for choosing Dunny’s Tours, please fly with us again on your next-’

  ‘Zip it, Dunny,’ said Gem.

  The air temperature in Hirayama’s coms centre was a comfortable twenty degrees, but a slight sheen had appeared on Samuel J Westlake’s brow. He didn’t want to upset Gem. He loved her. God knows how much he loved her. But he couldn’t stand by while that undercover staffer or whatever he was made a fool of her. He had watched them together in the canteen. She had looked happy at first, then angry. They had left together and gone back to Mitchell’s quarters. He knew nothing had happened between them. There wasn’t time and Gem’s expression had been wrong when she left. He remembered her gentle hands on his shoulders in the sickbay. He knew she liked him. He knew it. Could she love him, though? A man of his age?

  Stop it, Sam. Do what you know is right. You have to, not just for Gem’s sake but for your own career. You saw what those nanos were doing as clear as day. And no matter who you are, it’s illegal to have them in your body outside of a hospice.

  Westlake cleared his dry throat and opened a comlink channel to Earth.

  To no-one but himself, Jake Dunne muttered, ‘Bloody hell, mate, you’re going nowhere fast in that…’ He was looking out through the Snipe’s forward transparency at two figures on the surface, who in turn were staring at the wreck of Mitchell’s skimmer. And it was a wreck. From the approach vector it hadn’t looked too bad – the nose was still intact and the rear of the craft looked like it was just buried under dust and rubble. Now that they’d landed it was a different story. The skimmer had been ripped open by the impact. The scanner in the Snipe wasn’t as sophisticated as those in the survey vehicles, but good enough to reveal a trail of debris stretching back over a kilometre. Dunne was amazed. How had Mitchell survived that? When he’d found him, the FedStat man was barely breathing and one of his legs was twisted round at an angle that had nearly made him puke to look at. Whatever he thought of Westlake, the medic must have performed miracles to get him back on his feet so fast.

  ‘Dunny?’ Gem Telson’s voice crackled over her suit’s comlink.

  ‘Yes, Gem. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Turn on the main search, please. The shadows are too dark to see what’s going on under this mess....’

  Unlike it’s thrusters, the Snipe’s search beam packed a punch and the area around them lit up like it was new year. On the surface, Mitchell stared in dismay. After the SenANNs’ description of his injuries he had expected things to be bad, but the Skimmer was wrecked. He didn’t have to feign surprise as he comlinked to Gem, ‘Shit. That’s a lot worse than I’d imagined…’

  ‘Yes. Like Jake said, lucky you had the cam-suit. I just hope David is as well-protected wherever he is. And don’t worry, Dunny isn’t hearing this.’ Gem touched the side of her helmet to indicate group coms was offline. ‘I’m no engineer but I know you’re not taking this piece of junk anywhere. What’s your plan?’

  ‘Salvage the spare air-packs and then back to base.’

  ‘What do you need air-packs for?’

  ‘Like I said, that’s classified. Once I’m gone, you can tell your team that FedStat have picked me up and that’s the last they’ll see of me.’ Mitchell was already in the rubble, using the cam-suit’s sensors. Gem remained silent, which worried him. He retrieved two packs, one of which was so badly damaged it was tossed straight back into the wreckage. One was better than nothing. His current pack was still at just over forty percent and if he was lucky, he may not need the spare at all.

  ‘So. What about David?’ Gem Telson’s voice sounded strained again.

  ‘I’ve told you. I’ll try to find out what’s happened to him. That’s the best I can do for now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lee, but that’s not good enough.’ She produced a small hand-laser from a utility pouch on her belt. It was FedStat issue, taken from his own cam-suit. She pointed it squarely at Mitchell. ‘I don’t care what they’ll do to me. I just want David back. And if I’ve got you, they’ll have to listen.’

  Mitchell selected active mission status and vanished. He stepped out of the line of fire, reached forward and pulled the pistol from her hand. His training kicked in and Gem found herself face down in the lunar dust. Some very unfeminine language came through the comlink. He selected visibility again and Gem glared up at him. Another voice interrupted, ‘You guys okay out there? Lot of dust flying around…’

  Gem adjusted her coms. ‘No trouble, Dunny, I… just took a bit of a tumble. Pressure’s fine though.’

  ‘Just be careful, eh?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Mitchell’s patience had expired. Charlis would soon make the same deduction about Cytec T-1 as he had. He comlinked to Gem, ‘That was stupid. Now get back to the buggy while I get rid of this.’

  Gem made her way back to the Snipe. Mitchell ducked out of sight behind the wreckage of the skimmer’s nose and replaced the laser pistol in the left cam-suit arm compartment. The integral cover had been damaged in the crash and Gem must have taken her opportunity while he’d been unconscious. He followed her back to the buggy, picking up the air-pack on the way. Inside, Jake Dunne had been oblivious to everything. As Mitchell removed his helmet, the young pilot said, ‘Sorry about your ship, Mitch. She looked like a real beaut.’

  ‘Yes, she was. I’ll miss her.’ For once, Mitchell wasn’t lying.

  ‘Back to base?’

  Mitchell nodded.

  ‘You okay, Gem? You look a little dusty…’

  ‘Fine, Dunny. Let’s go home.’

  For all his flippancy, Jake Dunne was no idiot and Mitchell made a point of keeping him talking on the journey back. Gem’s attitude was worsening by the minute.

  Ten minutes from Hirayama-Y’s airlock, the SenANNs contacted him again.

  ‘We have further data for you, Lee Mitchell.’

  Mitchell slunk aft and replaced his helmet. “Go ahead.”

  ‘We believe this information is important, Lee Mitchell. A level 3 message has just been sent to the headquarters of Minetec Incorporated. It gives details of your forced landing and subsequent medical treatment at Hirayama-Y Survey Base.’

  “Fuck. Who sent it?”

  ‘The message was sent by Dr Samuel Westlake. He further details his suspicions that you may be involved in criminal activity. He witnessed what he believes to be nanite activity within your body cavity.’

  “Makes sense. He’s been looking at me sideways since I arrived.”

  ‘We do not understand. Is this a colloquialism?’

  “Yes it is and I don’t have time to explain it right now. What it does mean is that I have to leave here right now. If I’m lucky, it could be a few hours before DS and Charlis are alerted by FedStat. If not, it may be a few minutes.”

  ‘We concur. We regret that We are unable to in
tercept or delay this message. That would be a breach of Our understanding with your kind.’

  “I understand. For what it’s worth, I never expected you to.”

  For the second time, Mitchell terminated the communion without waiting for a response. He wondered if the SenANNs might think he was a rude, ungrateful bastard.

  Let them think it. In a few minutes time, they won’t be the only ones.

  He engaged invisibility and stepped back towards the Snipe’s cockpit.

  A cam-suit’s integral Fetter Gun is much smaller than a staffer’s sidearm and has one setting: ‘Full’. Mitchell’s aim was true and fast, only one shot required for each of his targets. With Gem Telson and Jake Dunne immobilised on the deck, he brought the Snipe to a halt and set down on the surface of Hirayama-Y. He watched Gem’s eyes search the cabin. She knew he was there somewhere. Dunny had reacted badly to the FG strike and was unconscious. He found their respective helmets and put them on his paralysed victims. Gem looked scared and desperate and he found himself whispering ‘Sorry. And for David too.’ He hadn’t adjusted the cam-suit and she heard nothing. He hooked a Snipe air-pack up to each of them and reset the grav inside the buggy to ambient. It would make the task of moving them into the airlock a lot easier.

  Five minutes later, Mitchell veered the Snipe away from the two humans in pressure suits he had abandoned on the surface of Hirayama-Y crater. They would be fine. When the FG strike wore off, Gem’s voice would return. She would contact base and they would be rescued well before their air supply had reached halfway empty. He opened his mind to the SenANNs once more.

  “Please give me the optimal course heading for Cytec Assembly Plant T-1.”

  ‘Yes, Lee Mitchell. You should see it now.’

  Mitchell entered the heading and let the autopilot do the rest. The Snipe pointed itself towards Tsiolkovsky crater and informed him via the flight console that his journey time would be one hundred and seven minutes. He cursed under his breath. The Skimmer would have made it in less than four.

  “Is Agent Charlis still located at T-13?”

  ‘Affirmative.’

  “And there has been no further coms between himself and Delere Secos?”

  ‘This is also confirmed. There is additional data available for you, Lee Mitchell.’

  “Go ahead.”

  ‘A level 5 message has been received by FedStat Populus Liaison Division from Minetec Incorporated headquarters. It contains the details sent by the Hirayama-Y Survey Base team member Dr Samuel Westlake in the message that We described to you earlier.’

  “That was inevitable, I guess.”

  ‘We predict that Agent Charlis will become aware of your current location in approximately twelve minutes.’

  “That’s disappointing...” Thanks to Westlake, Agent Charlis would soon know that Mitchell was still alive. Once Gem and Jake had been recovered, their story would lead Charlis straight to him. For all its qualities, a civilian Snipe has no cam circuitry.

  The SenANNs hadn’t finished. ‘Given the technical specification, flight envelope and lack of offensive weaponry of this vessel, We predict that the probability of your survival following another encounter with Agent Charlis is-’

  “Please don’t tell me the odds,” Mitchell thought at them. “I already have a pretty good idea.”

  30

  The simulations were perfect, as expected. All that remained was to connect the array to the secondary grid, a compact quark reactor capable of trebling the overall power output of T-1. But there was a problem. Whilst accessing T-1’s central processor, Thorne had found a glaring anomaly. The main grid was running at ninety-eight percent load instead of the expected sixty-five percent of total capacity. Within seconds he had mapped every non-standard power usage over the last twelve months. Every one of them led back to Steinberg’s laboratory. Additional power had also been diverted from the cam circuits protecting the lowest levels of the facility. This was compromising the entire security of T-1.

  The Sentinel’s pincers clamped shut. Thorne felt a burning anger rising up inside him. The same, uncontrollable rage as when his parents had betrayed him on Vis’haan. Steinberg would pay for his treachery. And his assumption that he could hide his actions from such a superior intellect.

  The Sentinel left the array and headed for the nearest Transit node.

  Inside the car, Thorne remotely checked the Hybrid inventory. There were nine hundred and twenty-seven, eight fewer than should have been produced by now in the automated assembly area. He retraced the records for the missing units. Each had been categorised manufacture abandoned; donor material unsuitable. Thorne also noted that every one of the donors was a young female.

  The Sentinel remained motionless as the car approached its destination node. There had been no further mechanical incidents since Thorne had made the programming adjustments. There was nothing to hint at the rage that dwelt within its shell. The autom did not move as the car portal opened. It did not move as the Transit node was announced. It did not move as deep within its memory core, Ja’faal of Vis’haan returned to his home world once more.

  He was standing not in the atrium of the Citadel of Elders, but in a white room with a single doorway and a large window looking out over the city. From the skyline, he knew that he was on the outskirts of the City Prime. He was alone in the room. The restraining chords had been removed and he had been given a white s’haa to wear, as if he were being prepared for a medical procedure. He rubbed his sore wrists.

  Why was he here? And where were the Elders?

  The door opened and he caught sight of two guards outside as another male entered. It was the senior Elder who had visited him at the villa – but he was no longer stooped. He stood tall and straight and his movements were not that of a senior. His gaze was steady and purposeful. ‘Ja’faal. You no doubt have many questions. These will be answered in time. For now, you will obey every instruction that you are given. This is the way of things from this moment on. The way of the Provider Prime.’

  ‘I would like to see my parents.’ He was surprised by his own request. They had betrayed him, sold his life to the Elders for the sake of their own status in the community.

  ‘That is not possible. Your parents have returned to their home. They are happy for your selection, proud of their youngling. This they have told me.’

  He looked first at the male, then around the stark, white room. In the far corner he noticed, for the first time, a low couch with what looked like medical equipment next to it. ‘What is this place? You look like the Elder who came to visit me, but you are not an Elder. Who are you?’

  The male spoke again, his voice hard-edged this time. ‘I have told you, Ja’faal, it is not your place to question, but to obey. You will be told all that you need you know.’

  Fear began to take hold. The male saw the change in him and gave an order to the guards. He panicked, but reached the door seconds too late.

  He heard the lock engage.

  He cried out, raising his arms and hammering against the cold metal…

  The car portal had closed several minutes ago, having detected no intention from its passenger to disembark. The Sentinel raised its arms, lurched forward and walked through as if the titanium-skinned hatch wasn’t there. Half of the hatch skidded away in a blaze of sparks, the other twitched uselessly against the side of the car. The Sentinel engaged emergency drive mode. With repulsors on fifty percent and maximum traction, it became half as heavy and twice as fast. At the subconscious command of Ja’faal of Vis’haan, it turned and raced down corridor M-11 towards Steinberg’s Med Lab.

  The alarm was relayed instantly to his airscreen, but Victor Wade was not quick enough to see the events in real-time. It looked like there had been an explosion inside the car. Wide-eyed, he replayed the vid from thirty seconds earlier. The car was already stationary at this point and although he could make out a dark shape, there was no movement inside. The half-smoked cigar slipped from his fingers as he
watched the massive autom burst out, then turn down the corridor at breakneck speed.

  ‘Holy shit..’ Wade called up the 3D of the immediate area on his airscreen. The autom was headed for the Med Lab. He hit the comlink. ‘Steinberg! This is Wade. There is a rogue autom heading straight towards you. Get out and take Moreno and the girl with you. Do not use corridor M-13. Take the Transit from corridor M-16. Go anywhere, but get some distance between you and it. I’ll try to slow it down meantime...’ Wade’s voice trailed off. He wasn’t sure he could keep his last promise. Weaponry up here was limited and he grabbed the most powerful thing he could find – a mid-size laser rifle with an enhanced energy yield attachment. It would pretty much stop anything that they were manufacturing on site, but this beast was in another league.

  Wade hurried to the Transit node with the rifle slung over his shoulder. His habit of always leaving a car parked at the Control Centre paid off and he jumped inside, wondering on the best angle to approach Steinberg’s lair from.

  ‘Node 16.3 – no, wait, cancel that. Node 13.3. Max velocity.’

  Shit. Where was Thorne? That thing had walked off his skimmer as large as life so he must know what it was and how to control it. With some caution, Victor Wade opened another comlink connection. ‘Mr Thorne? Victor Wade here. Sir, we have an emergency. The autom that arrived with you appears to be out of control. It has wrecked a Transit car and is now heading towards the Med Lab. I’m trying to intercept it, but any information you can give me on this thing would be helpful. Mr Thorne? Are you there? Mr Thorne!’ Wade staggered sideways as the car’s anti-inertia circuits struggled at max velocity.

  ‘Thorne here.’ The voice was rasping and metallic.

  ‘Mr Thorne, thank fuck.’ Wade grimaced as his veneer of composure collapsed. ‘We have a serious problem here. This autom, it’s-’