Fallen Metropolis (Omnibus Edition)

by Matthew J. Barbeler

“We were young. Our minds were full of whatever bullshit ideology was the flavor of the month. And like an idiot, I listened to whatever you fed to me. The difference between us is that I made the choice to save life, no matter what form it takes, and you chose to destroy it.”

  “I heard you murdered your commanding officer in cold blood. How is that saving life?” Veck challenged.

  “Yeah, I killed him. I killed him for the same reason I’m taking you back to face the Alliance. Because it’s right.”

  “Doling out death and judgement. You remind me of someone.” Veck laughed.

  “This discussion is over. You move from where you are, you get fried from the inside out. Just remember that before you try anything. You move one inch from where you are right now, you die, and I get a fortune in credits from your corpse.”

  “Good luck on your little rescue mission Draco. See you when you get back.”

  Draco turned and walked back up the stairs to the armory.

  When he arrived, he was happy to see that the troops were ready for deployment. Al, Raze, Ava and Vynce stood next to the shuttle bay door. They were fully loaded.

  Draco suited up himself. As his helmet came down inside the armor pod, he opened a comm channel directly between himself and Ava.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  When he spoke only to her, his tone shifted. It wasn’t the voice of a lover or a Captain. It was the voice of a concerned friend, and she had only ever heard him use it when they were alone.

  “I’m fine, cap. I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

  “You call that a snap? I’m disappointed. Remember that time you threw that explosive ander nymph at my head? That was snapping.”

  Ava laughed.

  “Yeah, well I still feel shitty about it,” she said.

  “Good. But you need to put your game face on. We’ve got lives to save.”

  “I know.”

  There was silence between them for a few seconds, but Ava was the one to break it.

  “Thanks. You know. For caring,” she said.

  “I’d be a pretty terrible Captain if I didn’t.”

  Draco stepped out of his armor pod, in full assault gear. Black, with gold trim. The same gold eagle crest that was patterned on his combat jacket was emblazoned on his right shoulder guard.

  Draco still saw himself as a soldier first, and as Captain of the Icarus second. In his mind, the ship still belonged to his father. It felt wrong to call himself Captain even though his father had been dead for years.

  ‘Captain, we are now within launch range of the Metropolis Seven.’ Evie spoke directly into Draco’s comm channel.

  “Excellent. Prep the drop ship Evie,” Draco said to Evie directly, then spoke to the rest of the crew, “We’re within launch range, troops. Check your oxygen supply, suit integrity and take stock of your supplies. Once we’re good, we’ll be blasting off. Nook, are you there?”

  ‘Yes Captain, I’m here. I’ll be tuned into your comms for the entirety of the mission, so whatever you hear, I’ll hear,’ Nook said.

  “Fantastic. Is the towing gear ready for deployment?”

  ‘Yes sir, diagnostics are good. Once you launch in the drop ship Arak will position us in front of the ship. Reban and Rhken will begin attachment. Once the engines are back online, we’ll engage the heavy thrusters and drag Metropolis Seven out of orbit. I just have one thing to add sir.’

  “What’s that?”

  ‘If you don’t get the engines back online in four hours, we’ll be playing a very dangerous game. Arak is positioning us outside the delivery bay right now, and it should only be a short distance to engineering and engine diagnostics. But you really need to hurry. The ship is gargantuan.’

  “Do we have schematics yet?”

  ‘Not yet, I have downloaded the schematics for Metropolis Six, and it was a much smaller ship. Fifty thousand passenger capacity. All other Metropolis ships followed the same basic design though. The trip to the engine room should only take about forty-five minutes.’

  “All right. You all heard Nook. We make our way to the engine room first. We need to get those engines online. Are we clear?”

  “Yes sir!” the team responded in unison.

  The doors to the shuttle bay opened. They climbed the ladder up to the small drop ship. The drop ship was flat, rounded, and sat on top of the Icarus.

  They boarded the drop ship and strapped in. From the windows they saw their first glimpse of the Metropolis Seven. It was bigger than some moons that Draco had seen. It looked like a cigar with a swollen end. It had a snub nose at the front of the ship which tapered out to a thinner end towards the back end where its main engines were located.

  The ship was backlit by Krakaterra. The planet burned with primal destructive force, and behind the burning planet was Gemon I, burning several million times hotter.

  In five hours, the planet and the orbiting ship would pass into the hot zone, and all would be lost.

  Chapter Four

  The shuttle detached from the topside of the Icarus and flew towards the Metropolis Seven. The shuttle was small. It looked just a little like a personal anti-grav transport from New Earth. There were two seats in front for the pilot and co-pilot, with a wider back end to carry another eight passengers, or two passengers and cargo. Inside the drop ship was an emergency weapons and ammo cache, for those times where the crew needed extra supplies for a lengthy campaign. The stores were full, but Draco did not anticipate they would need to use them.

  Draco sat in the cockpit with Aloysius. The Metropolis Seven loomed in front of them.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that, Al?” Draco asked.

  “I’ve never seen anything quite like it, Captain. It is very humbling.”

  “How so?”

  “Against the power of those twin stars and the gravitational field of the planet, we are nothing. Each of us as a singular individual could do nothing to resist their power. But building on the knowledge of past generations and adapting technology for our own ends, we can save hundreds of thousands of people from that power. But still, we are only acting within the limitations of what the universe allows.”

  “That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”

  “Conversely, could you imagine if you were one of the passengers, knowing that your certain doom was only hours away, and being utterly powerless to stop it?”

  “I hope we can avoid that.”

  “Me too, Captain. Me too.”

  Draco looked back through the rear-facing camera at the Icarus. The sides of the sleek ship looked like wings tucked close to the body of a bird of prey in a power dive. It was painted black and grey, except for the Goldwing family crest emblazoned in gold on the side, just above each of the two powerful thrusters which were positioned like outstretched talons on the underside of the ship.

  Ahead of them, the door to the delivery bay on the side of the giant ship was nothing but a black speck on the hull. As they grew closer, the speck grew larger until it became a target they could hit.

  They cut thrust as they closed in on the delivery bay. Draco took a moment to look back at his crew.

  Ava had been uncharacteristically quiet. Vynce looked down the sights of his rifle, checked the firing mechanism, checked the ammo port and checked his supply of ammo. He always liked to carry a variety with him on missions. You could never be too prepared.

  Raze had his eyes closed, meditating like he always did before a mission.

  Aloysius reached out and pressed a section of the control console. A green light appeared in the back of the shuttle.

  “We’re approaching the bay doors. Ready yourself for landing,” Aloysius said.

  They passed into the gargantuan delivery bay. There were three levels; the bottom two were marked for supply drop offs, and the top level was marked for passenger arrivals. Based on the maps of the Metropolis Six, the lower level entrance would take them directly to the engine control room in the shortest amo
unt of time.

  “Something is very wrong here,” Aloysius said slid quietly into the ship.

  Draco peered forward, then checked the readouts on the display. “There’s no gravity field. No oxygen. It’s a vacuum.”

  “I’ll bring us in a close to the bottom entrance as possible.”

  “I don’t like this,” Draco said before switching channels to speak to the whole crew, “Before we land, I need everyone to be ready to switch over the auxiliary oxygen and to activate their grav boots. It looks like there’s no power out here. The whole place is a vacuum.”

  The rest of the crew shared uncertain looks as they rechecked their oxygen supplies and calibrated their grav boots.

  They glided closer to the airlock doors. The drop ship slowed as they approached. Aloysius brought the ship in to rest on the wide walkway right in front of the airlock.

  “Engaging energy tethers,” Aloysius said. An immediate jolt went through the shuttle as four tethers of pure energy shot out from the bottom of the ship and locked onto the walkway below them. The tethers drew the ship closer to the walkway until it was secured. They formed a bond between any two materials, so long as the material had an electron charge that the tether could bond itself to.

  The shuttle came to rest. Draco killed the engines and opened the small hatch between the two pilot seats. He and Aloysius crawled through the cramped space and into the back. The rest of the crew were already on their feet.

  “Engage auxiliary oxygen supplies and grav boots now,” Draco commanded.

  After a moment’s pause, Draco opened the external hatch of the shuttle and stepped out onto the bottom delivery platform of the Metropolis Seven.

  As he looked around the cargo bay, Draco realized the scope of how many supplies a ship would need to sustain a population of one hundred thousand humans.

  The absolute cold and silence of the vacuum seemed to pierce his armor and penetrate down to the bone. He shivered but continued.

  One by one, the crew stepped out of the drop ship behind him. Aloysius was the last to leave and closed the shuttle hatch behind him.

  Draco led the team into the industrial airlock in front of them. Nothing but blackness lay beyond the threshold. Draco turned his shoulder-mounted lamp on, and a beam of light cut through the darkness. The airlock door leading into the ship was closed. Debris floated all around them. There was a chance that beyond that door there was light, power and oxygen.

  Raze opened the control console next to the interior airlock door. He slipped a data pack into the input slot and brought up the command console. A few seconds later the lights came on. Ava and Vynce raised their weapons at the sudden flash of light, but Draco motioned for them to ease back.

  The outer airlock doors closed with a hiss. A synthetic female voice from the ship spoke. ‘Pressurization.’

  The crew were barely given any time to react when the pressurization began. Breathable oxygen was pumped into the airlock, and the moment the simulated gravity drive was activated, the floating debris came crashing to the ground.

  “Scans are good, Captain. The air is breathable and free from contaminants,” Aloysius said.

  “Everyone, turn off your auxiliary oxygen supplies and let them refill,” Draco said as the airlock into Metropolis Seven opened. The oxygen tanks integrated into their assault gear could take a minute amount of oxygen that was breathed in by the wearer and add it to the oxygen reserves until they were at full capacity. Draco watched his oxygen reserves rise from ninety-eight percent to ninety-nine percent.

  Beyond the threshold of the door the lights were out. Draco motioned for the rest of the crew to turn on their shoulder lamps and follow him as he stepped into the giant ship.

  Chapter Five

  Back on the Icarus, Rhken watched her father at the terminal. She picked at her fingernails every time she thought about the giant ship hanging there in the void waiting to cook. Their new pilot, Arak Nara, had left Captain Goldwing and the rest of the combat-ready soldiers to their mission while he moved the Icarus into position at the front of the Metropolis Seven.

  Rhken wasn’t entirely convinced that she could trust Arak yet. He’d been working for one of the mercenary outfits that had been trying to kill them on Torusk. One of the mercenary outfits that were employed by the Vartalen warlords to keep people like Captain Goldwing and his crew out of the Arcturus Sector.

  There was nothing to be done for it now. They needed a pilot, and Arak was what they had to work with. He did seem like he was trying to turn over a new leaf, but Rhken found it hard to trust someone who had once taken credits to kill people.

  If Captain Goldwing was willing to give him a chance, then Rhken had no choice but to go along with it. She’d be keeping her guard up around him, though.

  Once Captain Goldwing re-engaged the engines aboard the Metropolis Seven, they could tow the ship back into safe space and contact the Alliance Military. Then they could get the hell out of here. This wasn’t their job. They weren’t even supposed to be in the Arcturus Sector.

  But when Captain Goldwing got a tip about the location of Veck Simms and figured that there might be a chance to capture him, all their other plans were thrown out the window.

  Rhken didn’t object to their sojourn to Torusk. It was the right choice. Now that Veck was in custody the galaxy would be a safer place. But Captain Goldwing had a habit of making other people’s problems his problems.

  She looked over at her sister, Reban. Even by the cultivated and manufactured aesthetic standards of New Earth she was gorgeous. She had naturally straight black hair that looked blue in the sunlight. Her skin was flawless. She was far luckier in the puberty stakes than Rhken had been. Reban got all the curves, and none of the awkwardness that Rhken seemed to end up with.

  But luckily, Rhken had one thing her sister lacked. Brains. That’s not to say that Reban was stupid – she was far from it. But Rhken was almost as good as her father, and at less than a third of his age. Even though Rhken felt a burning envy when she looked at her sister, she quietly thought that she got the better end of the deal.

  “Rhken, have you got checked the tether integrity? How many do you think we’ll need? I’m thinking maybe six or eight,” Reban asked.

  She had a habit of running the numbers and asking Rhken to confirm them. “If Captain Goldwing gets the engines running again, we should only need four. We won’t even need to engage our ion thrusters. We’ll just need to guide the ship out of orbit. But if the engines are completely fried, we’re going to need eight or ten, spread across a diameter triple the size of the Icarus. Any smaller, we risk just tearing a hole in the hull of the ship. That wouldn’t be good,” Rhken responded.

  “No, it would not.”

  “And yes, I’ve checked the tether integrity. It’s all optimum. Except 14-B. I’ve already put that one in the repair bay for diagnostics, so don’t touch it.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Reban replied with a sigh.

  Those little reminders that Rhken had it all under control were her way of letting Reban know that she could run this ship by herself if she needed to.

  She couldn’t see it, but she knew that Reban had rolled her eyes. Rhken looked back at her father, and Nook smiled back at her with a subtle shake of the head. He knew exactly what Rhken was up to and didn’t approve but knew better than to make a big deal of it.

  His quiet disapproval was powerful enough.

  “How long until we’re ready?” he asked.

  “We’re ready now. When we get into position, we’ll start securing the tethers,” Rhken said.

  “Good. Very good. You’ve both done well. Now, I know this is a big ship. The biggest we’ve ever hauled, but with all three of us working together we’ll get this done.”

  Rhken looked over to Reban, nodded, then went back to checking the tether integrity again.

  Double and triple checking your tech was the difference between crews that lived, and crews that choked to death in the vacuum of space.<
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  Chapter Six

  Below the engineering bay, Veck Simms was the portrait of calm. His head lolled back. His eyes were closed, and there was a blissful smile on his face. But under the surface, he was a raging ocean of frustration.

  There was only one hope. Only one way that he could get out of this predicament alive. The neurotech implant in his brain had allowed him to search through the internal systems of the Icarus. He probed it for weakness and tested the limits of what he could do before he attracted unwanted attention from the anti-espionage software installed as part of the artificial intelligence.

  Veck had felt the edges of Evie’s domain. He knew where he could move in the system without drawing her attention. He knew where the tripwires were, and he had worked out ways to avoid most of them. But for him to truly be able to enact an escape plan, he needed to find out how to get inside Evie’s core programming.

  He needed to find out how to use her against the ship.

  He had already tried getting into that abomination Aloysius.

  As far as Simms was concerned, the Children of iNet were not true life. They were a paltry imitation of true consciousness. They were just complex pieces of code that achieved self-awareness through a freak accident back on Old Earth.

  They had the capacity to be the perfect organism. Their bodies never decayed and rotted. But they existed as a by-product of all the failings of humanity. They had strength, yes, but also weakness. Compassion. Forgiveness. Tolerance. Eccentricity. Free-will.

  They were nothing but a bastardized approximation of humanity in an immortal shell. They didn’t deserve to exist.

  But that Child of iNet, Aloysius, he was old. His neural pathways and logic circuits didn’t work like a normal artificial intelligence framework, so it was impossible for Veck to crack him.

  Veck was aware that the Child of iNet could feel him, but Aloysius did nothing to fight him. He simply tolerated him, as though he was a program that had gone corrupt. Veck got nothing of value from the Child of iNet. Even his information banks were kept in a strange, disorganized way. Remnants of his creation, no doubt. His approximation of a human mind was just as scattered and unorganized as any human brain.