“We need to get downstairs. Holding is on ten, so that’s only four levels.”
“Elevators, two o’clock.”
“They’re out,” said Eilentes. “Lights are all turned off.”
“Must be in lock-down,” Throam said. “Someone had time to throw a switch somewhere.”
Caden glanced at his holo. “Stairways wind around the core of the building. We’ll pass by security control on the way down.”
“Can we spare the time?”
“It’s the best chance we’ve got of finding out what we’re up against. Let’s move.”
They hurried to the centre of the level, until the corridor opened out into a large atrium. A glass roof curved overhead, daylight streaming in above them.
“This way,” said Caden. He hurried over to the edge of the empty space at the core of the building, dropped next to the wall which surrounded it, and peeked around the corner of the stairs to the next floor down.
“We’re good,” he signalled. They stole quietly down to the next floor, and then the next.
“Security control.” Throam whispered it, and nodded towards a floor chart on the wall opposite the foot of the stairs. “It’s just over there.”
Caden checked the corner, beckoned to the others, and stepped out. He hurried along the corridor, quietly, following the route indicated by the chart.
Around the next corner, he saw the doorway of security control. It was wide open, and faint sounds of movement came from within.
He signalled to Throam and Eilentes to take up flanking positions on either side of the door, and crept closer. As he approached, he edged out to get line of sight into the room.
There was — as far as he could see — only the one person in there.
“Branathes,” he said.
Gordl Branathes looked up from the central console, and smiled at him.
Something is wrong.
“You are the Shard Elm Caden.”
“That’s me.” He glanced around and saw that Branathes was indeed alone.
“I was wondering if you would come yourself.”
“Well now you know. Step away from the console.”
Branathes stayed where he was, behind the door-facing arc of the console.
“Now, Branathes. Step away.”
“I am afraid you will have to make me.”
Caden stepped forward. “I’m quite happy to do that.”
Before Caden had time to react, Branathes slapped a button on the console. The door behind Caden slid down quickly and heavily, thudding into place. After a few seconds, he heard a soft thumping sound on the other side. Throam was probably banging his fist on it.
“Just you and me then,” Caden said.
“If you say so.”
Something is wrong.
“Whatever you want here, Branathes, you’re not going to get it.”
“I will. I only have to find her.”
“It’s over, Branathes.”
“It is not over. It is barely begun.”
“Look, I don’t really care if you’re Gordl Branathes, or some kind of enemy agent. The fact is that you’ve been caught.”
“Kill this body; there are many more like it. I will still have the information it possesses.”
“Okay… so enemy agent then. Who are you, really?”
“I am.”
“You are what?”
“I just am.”
The body of Gordl Branathes continued to tap at the console, no doubt trying to find the location of Doctor Bel-Ures. Caden wondered what in the many worlds he had managed to get himself involved with this time.
“I can’t very well call you ‘You Are’, can I?”
“I have no name.”
“What do people call you?”
“Too many names to choose from.”
“Then I think I will just call you Voice.”
Voice glanced up at him, frowned, and then went back to his work.
Something is wrong.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
“Why would I be? As I said, there are many bodies like this one.”
“It would be a bit of a setback though, wouldn’t it? If I popped a round through that skull? You’d have to send another body.”
“You are perfectly welcome to try,” said Voice. “But I do not think you will enjoy the consequences.”
“Why is that?”
“They will stop you.”
Caden looked around again. “There’s nobody else here.”
“I rarely travel alone,” said Voice.
“You seem pretty much alone to me.”
Voice smiled a sickly smile. “Look harder.”
Caden felt the first real unease he had experienced since entering the room. Between Naeb, Morlum, the citizens of Aldava, and the denizens of Woe Tantalum, he had started to become accustomed to people acting strangely. Voice was weird, true, but he was not quite the weirdest person Caden had met recently.
But something in his tone warned Caden that he was not lying.
“Where in this empty room am I supposed to be looking?” He asked.
“Not in the room,” said Voice. “At the room.”
Caden looked around again, carefully, and took it all in.
The door was mounted in a wall of its own, one which was painted white and decorated only with some information signs and posters. Both of the two side walls adjacent to that one were lined with racks of holos and hard-copy files. The rear wall was all monitors.
I warned you. Something is wrong.
He tried to see without seeing, defocusing his eyes and shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
And then he saw.
Quick as a flash his rifle was knocked away from him before he could raise it fully, something soft but unyielding striking it from his grasp, and he was pushed back by the blow. The room itself moved around him.
Let me fight with you.
He drew a zadaqtan from its holder and hurled it at the wall in one swift movement. Its glossy, black shaft disappeared long before it should have struck the racking, right up to the handle, and it travelled sideways and down through the air. The pattern of files and holos went along with it, warping and melting and reshaping as it rippled across a shifting surface.
Movement behind him. He wheeled on one foot, and loosed another two blades.
Those two buried themselves in something that was much closer to him than it looked.
The walls aren’t walls, he thought. It’s camouflage!
“Shaeld Hratha!” Voice was shouting. “You cannot defeat what you never see.”
Caden was moving across the room even before he knew he needed to react, his instincts launching him into cover. He ducked under something that looked like part of the ceiling but which was far too low. A not-wall lurched in front of him, hot air flowing from it, acrid and sharp. He caught the momentary glint of a dark eye, sweeping past and then rearing back.
He rolled under one side of the console, and hurled himself out under the other.
Voice laughed at his efforts.
How did I not see them before? Caden thought. They’re so big.
He threw another zadaqtan, and the slender blade stopped just over a metre away, most of its razor-edged length vanishing into the air. The handle drew back from him quickly, as if it had struck its target in a sensitive spot. He seized the opportunity to throw himself at the far corner.
Kill them all.
He snatched up his rifle from the floor, rolled onto his knees, and let loose.
Holes ripped through the rippling mass of bending décor and furnishings in front of him, and it pulled back sharply. A strange, baleful noise followed, resonating between his ears, the sensation of it thunderingly painful behind his eyes.
He kept firing, and the other one might have been hit too. He could no longer tell. The room was a whirlwind of motion and mimicry.
One of the masses pulled to the side sharply, avoiding the bursts of rounds fro
m Caden’s rifle, and Voice’s head snapped back. Blood spattered against the monitors on the rear wall, and the vacant body of Gordl Branathes slumped lifelessly to the floor.
Caden was hit on one side, the blow knocking him into the wall — the real and very hard wall, he discovered instantly. He felt something sharp rake across his ribs. Warm blood began to seep through his under-layer immediately, and he glanced down to see parallel slashes in his outer armour.
He ducked to the side just in time, and something heavy thudded against the plasteel where his head had been.
He opened fire again, and—
The explosion was outside the room, but the force and sound of it still filled his world with pain. Plasteel fragments rained down everywhere, some of them seeming to bounce and roll across thin air.
He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and saw Throam peering along his sights through a ragged hole.
Caden was through the blast hole like a shot, tossing an incendiary grenade back into the security room after him. He hit the ground, and there was another loud explosion, this one much meatier-sounding than the first.
“What the fuck just happened to you?” Said Throam.
“I think I just found out what Shaeld Hratha means,” Caden said. He coughed up dust and dirt.
“And?”
“It means bring a grenade.”
“Branathes?”
“Dead. Shot him. He was already gone though; Voice had him.”
“Voice?”
“Whatever it is that’s controlling the Rasas. I’m certain it was in the room with me.”
“Holy shit.”
“It didn’t care about dying, either. Said it would still know what Branathes knew. But it didn’t get what it came here for — I have a feeling we’ll have more company soon.”
• • •
Brant and Tirrano hurried through the streets of Barrabas Fled, doing their best to avoid the few vacantly staring people who still stumbled this way and that.
“I don’t like this,” said Tirrano. “It’s just wrong. And what is that smell?”
“Keep moving,” Brant said. “We’re nearly there.”
“Shame we couldn’t have come down right on top of the building.”
“Probably wouldn’t have taken the weight. That hauler might look small, but it’s pretty heavy in a gravity well.”
They rounded a corner, and Brant checked his view of the street against his holo.
“That one. That’s it.”
He pointed to a building opposite, and they ran across the road. He found a portico entrance with wrought iron sides, and hopped up the steps. The inner doors were unlocked.
He opened one of them. “Hello?”
“Welcome, intruders, to this humble abode,” a voice boomed.
Brant nearly leaped out of his skin. “It’s a recording.”
“Humble?” Said Tirrano.
“Before you waste your own time, know this: everything of value or significance has been removed from the premises. The authorities have been alerted to your presence.”
“That might mean he’s not here.”
“Wait a minute,” said Tirrano. “Are you a recording, or a house master?”
“I am a house master,” said the voice.
“Where is the occupant?”
“Mister Kages is currently unavailable, due to the end of the world.”
“We’re here to rescue him from that,” said Brant. “Would you please tell us where he is?”
“That request conflicts with my duty to ensure Mister Kages’ privacy.”
“Listen, you stupid machine,” Tirrano snapped. “His life is more important than his privacy.”
There was a pause while the artificial intelligence behind the walls of the house weighed up the options.
“I do not have sufficient information to authenticate your intentions.”
“Okay,” said Brant. “Can you tell him we’re here instead? Is that possible?”
“Yes.”
“Brilliant. Tell him Elm Caden sent us, and I have his digital seal to prove it.”
“Please wait in the lobby while I pass the message along.”
Tirrano rolled her eyes, but Brant took a seat on a marble bench. A fountain in the centre of the lobby bubbled happily to itself, strangely relaxing given the circumstances.
Long minutes passed.
“What was that?” Tirrano asked.
“What?”
“You didn’t hear it? Listen.”
Brant heard it the next time; a drawn-out booming noise, far in the distance. Ripples crossed from one side of the fountain’s pool to the other.
“What in the worlds was that?”
There was another boom, and then another.
“Oh my… Brant, I think it’s bombardment.”
“Bombardment?”
“From orbit. They’re glassing the surface.”
“They… they wouldn’t!”
Another boom, and another, and another. They were coming steadily now, at regular intervals.
“House master, hurry up.”
“Please continue to wait.”
“If we have to wait much longer, there will be no getting off this rock. It’s under attack.”
Brant began to feel the tremors through the floor.
“I’m here, I’m here,” came a new voice, and he looked towards it.
The man who hurried from the hallway at the other end of the lobby looked haggard, as if he had not been sleeping. He had a civilian re-breather over his face, which gave his voice a muffled, plastic quality.
“Joarn Kages?”
“The very same, my boy. And you are?”
“Occre Brant. This is Peras Tirrano. Elm Caden sent us.”
“And not a moment too soon,” said Kages.
“You’re telling me. We have to leave, right now.”
Kages took one last look around, and followed them out of the door.
The ground was shaking by the time they reached the hauler. Every few seconds, dust and pebbles leapt into the air. Far away on the horizon, Brant could see clouds of orange-black flame erupting from the surface of the planet.
“Mestivar,” said Kages. “That was the city of Mestivar.”
“Let’s get off the surface, before this city goes the same way.”
“I heartily endorse that initiative,” said Kages, and jumped onto the hauler’s ramp.
They ran inside, and Tirrano hit the control to close the ship. She lost no time in getting to the cockpit.
“Running preflight,” she said. “The short version.”
“System overview is green,” said Brant. “Go, go, go!”
The hauler lifted, and she began to put distance between them and Mestivar before the little ship started to leave the surface.
“Stealth plates engaged,” said Brant.
“Oh my worlds,” said Tirrano.
Brant looked over her shoulder, and saw the holo she was looking at. She had brought up the view from the aft sensor array.
Behind them, the entire horizon was ablaze.
• • •
Throam had taken point wordlessly after the encounter in the security control room, and Caden guessed that the close call with Voice and his guardians had reminded the counterpart of his primary duty.
They moved swiftly through the building, silent, checking the corners and doorways carefully but never quite stopping.
“This is it. Holding.”
Caden motioned for Eilentes to take up position outside the door, and Throam raised his rifle. He nodded to Caden.
They went in together.
Inside, the entranceway was being guarded by two Eyes and Ears officers. They both carried sub-machine guns, and ducked down behind a reception desk the moment the doors opened.
“Don’t come any closer,” one shouted.
“Stand down,” Caden shouted back. “I’m a Shard. We’re here to extract Doctor Bel-Ures. Under the circumstances, I thin
k it would be best if you came with us too.”
“Identify,” one of them called back.
Caden sent a command to his link via his holo, and after a moment he heard a chirp from one of their own holos.
“It’s him all right,” the second officer said.
“Where is Bel-Ures?” Caden asked. “I’ve killed the man who came for her, but we have no idea how many others came with him.”
“She’s in room six,” said one of the officers. “Come this way.”
Caden and Throam followed him to the rear of the room, through double doors into the corridor beyond. The officer continued, until he reached the third door on the right, knocked, and entered.
Caden followed him in.
“Doctor Bel-Ures?”
She had been pacing up and down, but stopped when he spoke. She turned to face him.
“What now?”
“I’m here to extract you, Doctor. My name is Elm Caden.”
“Just you?”
“And my team. I’m a Shard.”
“I see. I’m not sure if that should make me feel safer, or more afraid.”
Bel-Ures was perhaps fifty, with brown hair that was streaked with grey. She was well-fed, he decided, but not fat. She had a confident air about her, moving casually but with a deliberate dignity.
“We really need to leave, right now.”
“Where is my family?”
“Safe,” said one of the Eyes and Ears officers. “They’re at a different location. We’re making arrangements to move them off-world.”
“I don’t suppose you would like to tell me what this is about, Shard Caden?”
She fixed him with a penetrating gaze, and Caden felt the slightest hint of hostility in it.
“We should walk and talk,” he said. “Time is a factor.”
“I think I would much rather wait until I know what’s happening before I go anywhere with you.”
“You see him” — Caden pointed through the open doorway to where Throam stood watching them — “he will carry you out of here over his shoulder if need be. I’d rather not ask him to do that.”
“I can walk,” she said.
Bel-Ures strode past Caden, her head held high, and stepped out into the corridor. He followed.
“You probably heard we’re at war with the Viskr again,” he said.
“I did. It’s all over the feeds.”
“Yes, well somehow your project at Gemen Station is at the root of it all.”
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 54