Fallen Metropolis (Omnibus Edition)

by Matthew J. Barbeler

  Jaxon had a single magazine left, and Doctor Harris only had a handful of shells.

  She looked over at him. “I guess this is our final dance.”

  He smiled. “Maybe, but because of us billions of people will get to dance their dances across the galaxy. There’s meaning in every moment. If you look for it, you’ll find it.”

  He leaned out into the corridor and saw a group of three infected running towards them. The two in front fell, but the third kept running. Its head was tipped back at an unnatural angle, and it was almost impossible for them to get a decent shot. The fleshling’s throat began throbbing like a heartbeat. It slammed into a couple of the survivors who were trying to barricade the door, but it broke through their line of defense.

  It sprawled out in the middle of the engine control room and Jaxon opened fire. Two bullets left the barrel of his gun before it was dry. The thing’s throat kept throbbing and inflating to terrifying size. He saw the sharp white needle-like bone protrusions that were starting to emerge from the skin on its neck and chest.

  Before he could warn anyone, the fleshling exploded. The needle-like pieces of bone pierced everything like shrapnel. Jaxon felt hot pain all over his body, and a sharp piercing ache in his right eye. He tried to open it but found that he could not. He raised his hand to his face and winced as he brushed against the piece of bone that had pierced his helmet. Touching it sent a wave of agony right through his skull. He looked down at his chest with his one good eye and saw four pieces of bone jutting out of his armor. Blood had already started to seep through the wounds.

  He looked across the room at Doctor Harris. One of the bone spikes had punctured her temple. She had died instantly. In some ways he envied her. The infection had begun almost immediately. He could feel the hotness radiating from where he had been punctured.

  Jaxon tried to get back to his feet but found that he couldn’t. He slumped against the wall and turned his head to see the console. It showed a red dot which representing the Metropolis Seven and two larger yellow dots which represented the two stars of the Gemon system. White text on the display showed the estimated time of arrival. Thirty minutes.

  Jaxon didn’t think he could stay alive that long. He closed his eyes and tried to will death to take him.

  His last thoughts were of Ava. He imagined that they were back in their shared home on Orpheon. He dreamed that there had been no great war. That there was no infection. There was no Metropolis Seven. There was no Agency, and no Icarus. There was no pain.

  There was only him and her and nothing else mattered.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  There was nothing but the cold, the black, and the silence. Draco unconsciously held his breath as he passed through the gateway. The only sound he could hear was the almost silent, steady pulse of his beating heart. The Icarus was below him, and an unknown planet hung in the void in front of him. The vibrant blue of the ocean and the deep green of the jungle-covered islands reminded him of New Earth’s archipelagos, but there were no major land masses that he could see at all. The planet grew at a terrifying rate as the Icarus approached. Draco held the trigger on his grapnel launcher down and reeled himself closer to his ship.

  When his boots touched down on the back of the Icarus he finally gasped for breath. In the silence of the void his sudden inhalation sounded as loud as a sudden thunderstorm. His HUD showed that he had sixty percent of his oxygen tanks left. In the time it would take him to burn through the last of his oxygen, the Icarus would already be inside the atmosphere of the planet, and he would be burnt to ash.

  Draco needed to get inside. Quickly.

  He walked along the back of the ship as fast as his grav-boots would allow. Just behind the shuttle dock was an access hatch that was usually used to repair external damage on the shuttle when it was docked with the Icarus.

  The shuttle itself was still on board the Metropolis Seven, which could have been on the other side of the galaxy. Draco couldn’t be sure.

  The planet below them didn’t even look inhabited. There were no signs of cities or structures of any kind, and the space around the planet was free of satellites and other space traffic. Draco wondered whether anyone had ever actually set foot on the planet in front of him.

  When he reached the entrance to the hatch, Draco opened a small panel next to it which revealed a numerical keypad. Draco always thought it rather crude that he had to resort to inputting a four-digit code to enter his own ship, but things like voice recognition, fingerprint and retinal scanning didn’t tend to work when you were wearing a full-body suit designed to repel the penetrating radiation and cold of space.

  Draco entered the key code and the hatch slid open. Jets of oxygen shot out from the sides of the hatch as the air inside was jettisoned. Draco turned the handle on the thick airlock cover and opened it. He looked back at the planet in front of him and started to feel the temperature of his suit change. He no longer felt like he was submerged in ice water. It had started to get warmer. They had begun to enter the planet’s atmosphere.

  Draco swung his body feet-first into the hatch and landed on the bottom of the chamber. Draco pulled the thick hatch cover closed and turned the handle until it locked. A matching keypad was also on the inside of the chamber, just next to the door. There was a dark blue light just above the door which indicated that there was no oxygen in the chamber. Draco input the code once again, and the dark blue light flickered off. Oxygen was pumped into the chamber, and the light flicked to green. The door into the ship opened.

  Draco strode out from the access hatch and into the medbay. Arak Nara was sealed in the medpod undergoing treatment. Draco looked over the progress chart and grimaced when he realized what Veck had done to him.

  Arak’s arm was almost healed. The medpod affixed synthetic ligaments and cartilage to the exposed bone. A delicate metal instrument gently pushed the bone back into Arak’s arm. Arak was out cold, but he still grimaced with discomfort as the joint was relocated.

  Draco headed out of the medbay and into the main corridor. Veck’s voice echoed down the corridor from the bridge. The self-satisfaction of his victory was plain by the tone in his voice. Draco resisted the overwhelming urge to rush into the bridge. He knew that it was unlikely that he could best Veck in a one-on-one fight.

  Hundreds of questions raced through his mind. How had Veck escaped the containment cell? Why hadn’t Evie burnt out his neurotech implant? Where was Evie? Where in the galaxy were they? With each new question, more questions followed. But what really mattered that Veck was in control of his ship, and Draco wanted to put a swift end to it.

  Draco headed into the armory. He grabbed two of Ava’s buster pods from her locker and loaded them onto his forearms. The hot pink stood out against the black and gold of the rest of his suit. He engaged the buster pods to ensure they worked. They broke apart, slid up his arm and over his fist, and then re-formed on his forearm. Draco also grabbed a handful of flashbang grenades and hung them from his belt.

  Draco strode back out into the corridor towards the bridge. Veck’s voice grew louder as he approached, but the words were indistinguishable.

  The door to the bridge was open. Draco took a breath to center himself before sidling around the corridor. He glanced into the bridge and saw a red lump of cloth sitting against the closest wall. His heart ached when he realized that he was looking at the covered body of his old friend.

  Hot fury bubbled up inside him. He crept along closer to the bridge door and saw Veck Simms reclining on his chair. His boots rested atop the control console. Draco took one final breath, pulled the pin on a flashbang grenade and threw it into the bridge.

  Draco closed his eyes until he heard the flashbang detonate. Veck’s self-satisfied speech was cut short. He stumbled as he tried to get up from the Captain’s chair and Draco was next to him in a heartbeat. Veck roared in a blind rage. His right arm split apart and revealed the long blade. He slashed it wildly in the air around him.

  “Ar
ak Nara, you little fuck! I’ll kill the girl just like I promised, and I’ll make you watch!” he roared.

  “No, you won’t,” Draco said as he engaged the buster pod on his right forearm.

  Draco grabbed Veck’s sword with his left hand. He felt cold metal bite through the armor of his suit and into his palm. Draco threw a punch with all his weight right into Veck’s elbow. His cybernetic arm shattered from the kinetic force delivered by the buster pod. Draco tore the forearm from his body and tossed it aside. Veck roared again. Not out of pain – Draco didn’t think the madman could feel pain anymore – but he could feel frustration and blind fury.

  Veck tried to throw a punch with his other arm. Draco did the same. The buster pod met Veck’s fist which crumpled into a useless heap of cybernetic scrap.

  “You piece of Orphosian gutter trash!” Veck roared.

  Draco stepped back from Veck, who still flailed wildly, trying to hit something.

  “This isn’t Arak Nara,” Draco said simply.

  Veck’s face changed instantly. The mask of fury Veck wore disappeared as he recognized Draco’s voice.

  “Draco... please -” Veck began but Draco didn’t give him time to finish. He grabbed Veck by the hair and punched him directly in the throat. With one final punch Draco severed Veck’s head from his spinal column.

  “They only need your head, you piece of shit,” Draco said as Veck’s body fell lifeless to the floor of the bridge.

  Veck’s head began to laugh. The sound came from his mouth, even though there were no lungs to push air through his vocal chords. His laughter grew louder and more manic as it started to blast over the loudspeakers of the Icarus.

  ‘Draco, my old friend, I am the Icarus!’ Veck roared.

  Draco dropped Veck’s head and a cold dread crept across his body. Draco tried to turn away from the bridge, but he could barely move. The HUD of his smartsuit winked out in front of him as it powered down. Draco persevered and marched towards the exit of the bridge, even with the weight of the powered down suit slowing him down. After a few moments, Draco couldn’t move at all.

  He was frozen. The suit refused to move.

  ‘There are all kind of defense protocols stored in your AI core. And I’ve got access to every single one of them. Take this one for example, I can target a single suit and completely immobilize it. Or, if I wanted to, send a surge of power through its circuits and fry you from the inside out.’

  Draco felt the hairs try to stand up all over his body an instant before searing pain covered every inch of his skin. He roared in agony within his suit.

  ‘That’s the great thing about smartsuits. Because they interface directly with your nervous system overloading your pain receptors is remarkably easy to do. That was only one percent power. I wonder what five percent would feel like.’

  Draco ground his teeth. He tried to move his arms or his legs, but they wouldn’t budge. The searing pain returned in greater intensity. It felt as though his skin should be crackling and bubbling. Draco’s vision faltered. White motes of light, the harbingers of unconsciousness, danced in front of his eyes.

  He should have collapsed, but the immobilized suit held him steadily in place. The white motes of light grew larger. Draco could see two figures in front of him, blurry through the haze. One of the figures reached towards him, but the other figure pulled them away. The two figures left the bridge.

  ‘I was prepared to allow the girls and the pilot to live, Draco. That’s why we’re in this planet’s atmosphere. But now, I’m going to open the airlocks while we’re flying over the ocean. If the fall doesn’t kill them, exposure certainly will. And they’ll know that it was entirely your fault,’ Veck said.

  Another wave of agony washed over Draco.

  This time, he did pass out.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  In the medbay, Arak Nara had heard to the entire exchange. Draco was in trouble, and Veck was in control of the Icarus. They were running out of options quickly, but Arak knew of one way he could atone for his actions and save his Captain.

  His elbow joint had been healed but was still quite tender. His cheekbone had been re-set, but there was still a peculiar ache under the eye socket. Arak stripped his smartsuit off completely to avoid the torturous fate that Draco faced. He rummaged through the linen closet and found an elastic-waisted pair of white pants and a baggy white shirt. He dressed himself quickly and ran towards the bridge.

  He ran into Reban and Rhken, and they all went sprawling on the ground.

  “Oh my, I am very sorry girls! Is the Captain still alive?” Arak asked frantically.

  “I don’t know. I wanted to stay with him, but... I knew we couldn’t,” Rhken said.

  “Sis, how are we going to get out of this?” Reban asked.

  “The plan is the same as it was on the bridge. We go to the armory, and we eject ourselves from the ship using the drop pods. But...” Rhken said and looked at Arak knowingly.

  He nodded and said, “Yes. You should both go and prepare. I will bring the Captain to the armory. You should prepare a drop pod for him.”

  “But-” Reban said.

  “No, I must do this. Now go,” Arak commanded. When the girls both looked at each other uncertainly he yelled at them, “Go! Now!”

  They turned and ran towards the armory. Reban looked back at Arak sadly.

  When Arak reached the bridge, Draco was there in his black and gold armor, completely immobilized. Arak could see that Draco was unconscious through the Captain’s glass-fronted helmet.

  “I’m sorry for this,” Arak said as he threw his bodyweight into the Captain’s suit.

  Draco fell heavily to the floor of the bridge. Arak gripped the Captain by one of his outstretched hands and dragged him along the floor and out of the bridge.

  ‘Nara-ka! You’re all better! I can’t say the same for myself unfortunately. It appears that I’ve lost my head. But I’ve gained a new body that will suffice until I get back to my outpost. What in the galaxy do you think you’re doing?’ Veck asked.

  “You won’t kill him. I won’t let you,” Arak said simply.

  ‘I’ll kill whoever I please, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it,’ Veck said.

  Arak flipped Draco over onto his side. He grabbed the fire axe that lay next to Nook’s destroyed body. Arak walked back over to Draco and raised the axe over his head.

  ‘No! I command you to stop! You can’t kill him! He’s mine to torment!’ Veck roared.

  Arak swung the axe downward and it embedded itself into the suit that covered Draco’s shoulder. Draco went limp immediately.

  “I’m not killing him, I’m saving him.”

  Arak had destroyed Draco’s communication unit, which severed any and all external wireless communications from the rest of his suit. He was still unconscious, but Veck’s immobilization command had ceased. Arak dragged Draco out of the bridge as Veck roared wordlessly over the loudspeakers.

  The ache in his elbow joint had gotten worse as he dragged Draco. He could feel the new and repaired ligaments stretching and tearing with the stress he put them under.

  “Girls! Rhken! Reban!” he yelled.

  The girls joined him.

  “Help me, please,” he begged.

  With the strength of three, they dragged Draco into the armory and managed to prop him up inside one of the three drop pods. And there were only three drop pods. Only three tickets off the ship, and four people who wanted them. But Arak had already decided that he would be staying behind. It was the only thing he could do for allowing Veck to take the ship from him.

  While he was in the medpod, Arak thought he had figured out how Veck had managed to bypass Evie’s defense systems. He didn’t bypass them at all. He became one with her systems and slowly began to take over the AI core. He became so intrinsically linked with it that he was able to transfer his consciousness directly into it at the moment his body was destroyed.

  But like all artificial intelligence sys
tems, there were locks and limitations put in place so that an AI could never take full control of all systems if it became hostile. The evacuation protocols were protected. The drop pods could only be launched manually by someone who was still on the ship.

  They sealed Draco inside the first drop pod. He was still unconscious. Arak wished that he had been able to say goodbye. Rhken was next. She strapped herself in, and Arak locked the pod door from the outside. Next, he helped Reban strap herself in. She stopped him before he closed the door.

  “Wait,” she said.

  “We haven’t much time,” he said.

  “I just wanted you to know that... I know how you feel about me, and-”

  “No, please, Reban. There is no need-” he said.

  “Shut up Arak and let me finish. I love you. Not in the same way that you love me. But I do love you, and I wish that you could come with us.”

  Arak smiled and felt his bottom lip begin to shake. He nodded wordlessly as he closed the drop pod and locked it shut. Reban smiled out at him through the thick glass.

  Tears stung Arak’s eyes as he opened the launch console. He located the biggest of the small habitable islands in the ocean below them and programmed the drop pods to land there. He began the launch sequence, then held up three fingers which indicated that the pods would launch in three minutes. When he was sure the girls had seen his final message, he left the armory and headed toward the bridge. He began counting backwards from one-hundred and eighty in his head.

  Veck Simms began to laugh. The sound came from all around him.

  ‘You don’t realize it, but you’ve just signed their death warrants,’ Veck sneered.

  “You signed yours the moment you jumped into the AI core,” Arak countered.

  ‘Once the drop pods launch, I’ll simply loop back around and open fire on them. They’ll be helpless. Easy targets.’

  Arak refused to be baited into a response. He marched back onto the bridge of the ship and opened the Captain’s control console. He had started to feel a numbness creeping over him. He made the motions on the console as Draco had shown him to open the path to the heart of the Icarus. Veck raged through the speakers around him. But the heart of the Icarus was cut off from the AI core. Veck was powerless to stop Arak Nara.