“Rendering,” said the voice.
“Think longer term,” said Grace. She couldn’t see these fuckers’ thoughts like she could with organics like the Ezeroc, which was frustrating. Grace didn’t know how many there were, or where they were, or when she and Hope would be rushed. Speaking of which… Switching to the comm channel, she said, “How we doing, Hope?”
“Great,” said Hope. “I’ve been locked out of the central computer.”
“That doesn’t sound great,” said Grace.
“No, it’s good,” said Hope. “Before that happened, I wasn’t sure there was a central computer. Now I’ve found it. This probably won’t take long.”
“What if it does?”
“It’ll be a suckful day.”
“Copy,” said Grace. She hunkered down in the lee of the thing Hope had said was a nuclear reactor. Grace hoped the machines wouldn’t fire railguns into their central processing core.
There was a snickCRACK of sound, a dimple appearing in the metal above Grace’s head. The machines had tried to fire through it at her. Another snickCRACK, the dimple growing larger. I guess they figure they can make another reactor. “I have a question!” she shouted.
The firing stopped. “Do you wish to submit to the rendering process? Remove your helmet.”
“Not that,” said Grace. “I’m curious why you’ll expend energy and materials trying to render tiny amounts of metals from our corpses.”
“A human asks this question?” If Grace hadn’t known better, she’d have thought the voice sounded confused. “There can be no peace. Rendering is a useful byproduct of your destruction.”
Grace looked to her right, spotting Hope still tucked under a console. Grace closed her eyes, remembering the layout of the chamber. The entry portal was above her, Hope to her right and below. Grace was left-most in the room, a reactor’s bulk in the way. Below her was the machinery Hope had identified as an Endless field generator. Probably better to hide behind that. Grace held her sword up, feeling the heft of the metal in her mind, then threw it. Her will curved the throw, taking it around the reactor and through the doorway. There was a shink as metal cut metal, and Grace was moving, diving behind the Endless field generator.
No impacts followed her, and she dared look. Her sword was buried in the head component of a machine, it’s railgun hanging from its hands. Grace reached out, pulling both the railgun and the sword to her. “Hope?”
“This isn’t easy,” said Hope. “It’s really hard.”
Grace wedged the railgun against the bulk of the Endless field generator, pointing it toward the door. While she wasn’t good with guns, her old instructor Mickey had made sure she knew how they worked. This one looked weird but still like a gun. Sleeker. The grip was designed for a hand not quite human, but close enough. It didn’t have a trigger. “Huh,” she said.
“I know. Hard, right?”
“Everything here is hard,” said Grace. She licked more blood from her upper lip, her nose bleeding freely. “Hope, we’ve got to go. They’ll eventually get us.”
“I don’t think they will,” said Hope. “They’re out of robots.”
“They’re what?”
“They’re out of robots,” said Hope. “They have no more. At least that’s what I think this says.”
“How can an AI warship have no robots?”
“We do not need individual units to maneuver,” said the voice.
“Oh. I thought you’d gone,” said Grace. “Wishful thinking.”
“You also need drives to maneuver,” said Hope. “And a functioning reactor.”
“Yes,” said the voice. “Those components—”
It stopped. “Yes?” said Grace.
“I turned it off,” said Hope. “Just like an appendix, it’s got an off switch. I didn’t like what it was saying, or how it was saying it. It wasn’t very nice.”
Grace laughed. “You always surprise me, Hope,” she said. “I thought we would have to fight our way out of here. A legion of machines. Us against them. But you … turned them off.”
“Seemed the easier way,” said Hope. “Now shush. I’m trying to work out why their crypto keys are … nope, I’ve worked that out. I need a crypto key source.”
Grace clambered up to the doorway, finding the machine corpse she’d thrown her sword through. She hauled it down, finding the machine light. Seventy, maybe eighty kilos, tops. It was rigid, not dead weight like a human in the same condition would be, so somewhat easier to drag around than a corpse. “Here,” she said, dropping the machine at Hope’s feet.
“Perfect,” said Hope, the arms of her rig darting out to pair the shell of the machine away. Plasma arced and flared, exposing the head cavity. “Their processing crystal is still in the head. I know, I found that strange too. The chest makes more sense, until you remember these were designed by us.”
“By us?”
“Yes. These robots are hundreds of years old. Antiques. The ship is new, but their bodies are old.” Hope blew a strand of pink hair aside within her visor. “Got it.” She extracted a translucent cube from inside the robot’s head. It was about the size of a dice.
“That’s the machine’s brain?” Grace marveled at the tiny thing.
“I know,” said Hope. “Our tech is better now. The one I’ve put in Reiko two-point-oh is about half the size.”
Grace blinked. “All of that is equivalent to a human mind?”
“No,” said Hope. “It’s a lot better.”
“We’re doomed,” said Grace.
“Maybe,” said Hope. “But not today.” She slotted the crystal into her rig, then got to work. “Okay… okay. Yes. Got it.” A slot opened in a panel near the Endless field generator, a wedge of electronics sliding out. “That is the transponder.”
“Got it,” said Grace. She fielded the transponder, putting it in a pocket.
“Aaaaand… comm jammer is off,” said Hope.
“Grace?” Nate’s voice came over the channel.
“Nate.” Grace smiled, despite the risk of demise. “You’re still here.”
“Always,” said Nate. “But hey, we found assholes in here.”
“Similar up here,” said Grace.
“We squared ours away,” said Nate.
“Similar again,” said Grace. She fingered the repair of her suit. “Although there were a couple of close calls.”
“Gracie?” Kohl’s rumble came over the comm. “Remember, we don’t talk about the easy stuff.”
“Nothing about this was easy,” said Hope. “This was really hard!”
Grace laughed. Her family was alive. Alive, and safe. It was time to get off Pluto.
CHAPTER FOUR
DRIFTING OFF THE shores of Pluto was peaceful, in a there’s-no-one-here kind of way. El sat on her acceleration couch, listening to a little Mozart over the Tyche’s audio system, trying to work out what she’d do if Nate or Grace hopped on the horn, asking for an assist. She could fly the ship down, fangs out, and light a bunch of things up. Problem was, none of those problems were likely to be on the surface of Pluto. They’d be inside, down deep, and require a ship suit, walking, and close and personal combat. El had about enough of that kind of thing back on the Cantor. Her hands still shook.
She wished she could be more like their new crew member, Ebony Drake. The woman lay on her acceleration couch, snoring softly.
El wasn’t sure if the shaking was because of the stress of what happened back there, or because she’d borrowed some of Hope’s stims, chasing ‘em down with a cup of coffee. The coffee helped keep her hands warm, on account of turning down the Tyche’s life support. They had air, and enough power for the audio systems, but heating was turned down to fucking frosty with a headwind so they wouldn’t flatten the reserve batteries.
A more callous person might have suggested turning off the music, but El needed to keep the system live, in case a signal came from the crust below her. The music was more of a … readiness check. It confirmed
things still worked where it mattered.
El, if you’re in the business of lying to yourself, then you keep believing your hands are clutched around the coffee because of the cold. The shakes have nothing to do with it, right?
The small issue of the signal jammer wasn’t heightening her inner calm. She couldn’t talk to Nate or Grace. Hell, even if she wanted to, she couldn’t get on the horn to Kohl. Incommunicado. The facility on Pluto was a black box, and she was waiting for it to spit out the people she gave a damn about. So, here El was, on a ship filled with nothing but cold air, a jittery Helm, and a killer death robot Hope had secured in Engineering. Nothing to worry about.
“Hey,” Saveria’s voice said from the comm, startling El and making her drop her coffee. Drop wasn’t quite the right word. The lidded cup floated free without the constraints of artificial grav, turning in a gentle circle.
“Jesus fuck!” said El. Okay, the ship also has a teenage girl on it. Best not forget. She checked the ready room, but nope, Ebony was still snoring. Lucky there’s not an invasion.
“Uh, no,” said Saveria. “I was wondering if I could come up.”
“To the flight deck?”
“To the flight deck,” agreed Saveria.
El thought that through some. She didn’t much care for someone seeing her nerves on edge. Not the calm, cool exterior she wanted to advertise. On the other hand, Saveria was in Engineering, with a death robot for company. Odds were good her hands were shaking too. “Sure,” said El. “Only, don’t touch anything.”
The comm clicked in response. El wriggled on her acceleration couch, the restraints stopping her from floating away. She snared her coffee again, because it gave her hands something to do. While she waited, listening to old music, she tried to imagine Pluto’s shape beneath her. No lights out here meant the crust was pretty much invisible. It was a silhouette against the starscape, a thumbprint of nothing that drifted below her. Before powering down, El had pointed the Tyche’s nose at Pluto, the ship aiming at the heart of the planet.
In the distance, the sun shone. But Sol’s light was weak out here, its anger burned out by distance. The rest of the heavens were alive with the majesty of creation, more stars than she could count turning ever on.
“Hey,” said Saveria, from her shoulder.
“Fuck me!” said El, almost letting go her coffee again. “Don’t creep up on me like that.”
Saveria floated into the flight deck, snaring the cap’s chair and strapping herself in. “You knew I was coming.”
“I also know there’s a death robot in the back of the ship,” said El. “I’ve seen the holos. We’re one accident away from the thing waking up and killing us all.”
Saveria nodded, hair billowing out from her face. Here, grav off, it was like she floated in a dry ocean. El supposed her own hair looked much the same. “I guess. I mean, she looks nice.”
“The death robot?”
“Yeah. Reiko.” Saveria shrugged, bouncing against the straps. “Peaceful. Calm.”
“The bitch glassed me with a bottle, last time we were in the same room,” said El. “Didn’t even have the decency to hit me from the front.”
“Ah,” said Saveria. “Did you deserve it?”
El snorted. “Probably. I deserve most things that come my way.”
“Like sitting out here among the stars?” said Saveria. “Look at them. So bright.”
“They’re a sight,” agreed El. “Sometimes, when the universe ain’t on fire and people aren’t fixing to chew us up and spit us out, I come up here. Just me and the Tyche. Looking at the stars.”
They pondered that, looking at the stars for a while. “There more coffee?” said Saveria.
“Plenty,” said El. “I figured I might need about twenty cups before the night was out. I’m only on my third.”
Saveria snorted, then tugged free of her harness, drifting back into the ready room. Her voice came to El, clear as a bell. “Are you worried?”
“Sure,” said El. “I’m concerned I’m gonna have to go down there. Shoot my way in, most like. Kick the doors down. Get shot. Usual day at the office.”
“I didn’t mean that,” said Saveria. “I meant, are you worried they’ll get hurt? The emperor and empress seem like they can look after themselves. The stupid guy, too—”
“Kohl?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.” Saveria paused. “There any cream on this ship?”
El craned her head back, catching sight of Saveria near the dispenser. “See the button on the — yeah, that one. All the writing’s worn off. That’s the cream button.”
Saveria pressed the button, the Tyche offering her a spacer’s best imitation of cream. “This looks like white tar.”
“Just be happy it came out white,” said El. “Ship’s old. She’ll fly true, but some things don’t work quite right. Anyway. You aren’t worried about October Kohl.”
“No,” said Saveria. “Hope seems…”
El waited, but nothing came back from the ready room. “A little unlikely for this kind of life?”
“Sure,” said Saveria. She drifted back to the flight deck, pulling herself onto the acceleration couch. She had a coffee, sucking liquid from the nozzle. Saveria made a face. “What the fuck?”
“It’s strong,” said El. “Hope’ll be okay. She’s a lot tougher than—” She paused. El wanted to say tougher than she looks, but she meant, tougher than me. “Hope will be fine. She’s with the empress. Safest place in the whole universe to be.”
“Hmm,” said Saveria. The sound wasn’t agreement.
The music paused for a second, the Tyche blinking El’s console to life. Lights flashed on, and she saw Nate’s icon on her board. “Hey, Cap.” She winked at Saveria. Who says you can’t swagger from a chair? “Just talking about you.”
“Oh yeah? About my charm? Roguish good looks?”
“No,” said El. “About how you’re the most likely person to die down there.” After a minute, she tapped a finger against her board. “Hello?”
Nate’s sigh came back over the comm. “I figure we’re about ready for pick up.”
“Survivors?” El was hoping for a yes. Chad had good people. They were like Grace had been. Powerful. Important. Scared. All of that, wrapped up in a bundle of capability.
“‘Fraid not,” said Nate. “There’s nothing here for us anymore. And in, uh, thirteen minutes, this facility will explode, so I’d appreciate a ride.”
“You want me to take my ship down to where there’s fire and explosions?” said El. “No way.”
“Your ship?”
“The Tyche’s really our ship,” said Hope’s voice. El noticed how Saveria relaxed, closing her eyes and huddling over her coffee. “Umm. All of ours.”
“Great,” said Nate. “Twelve minutes.”
“On it,” said El.
• • •
Firing up the reactor took a moment, and then the flight deck came awake. The holo stage lit with a cool blue glow, lights on El’s console coming up with green across the board. Green was a good color and a better color than they’d been before she shut the ship down. “Huh,” she said.
“Problem?” said Saveria, adjusting the old-style cap she never seemed to be without.
“More of a strange occurrence,” said El. She flicked a few switches. “You know when you’ve got a problem with your console? And the tech tells you to restart it.”
“Yeah,” said Saveria. “Never fixes anything.”
“Right,” said El. “Turns out restarting a starship fixes everything.”
Ebony woke. “Wuzz? Are there roaches?”
“No,” said El. “Not enough screaming for that.”
The drives came online with a growl, the ship rattling behind her as the goddess woke, stretched, and blinked at the dark about her. Whatever — things seem to be running fine. El brought up the crew’s signals on Pluto, bright points appearing on the holo where Nate, Grace, Kohl, and Hope were. They’d made their
way to the landing pad, ready and waiting.
El put her hands on the sticks, giving the Tyche a nudge. The ship turned, a gentle arc across Pluto’s night sky. Now they had RADAR and LIDAR back online, the ship painted the surface of the planet. Nothing had changed. No Ezeroc, coming to eat their faces or whatever they had in mind. No AI machines, coming to destroy all humanity. Just dead ice and rock, as far as the ship’s eye could see.
She brought the ship down over the landing pad, feathering the Endless fields as they dropped. The ship hummed, happy to be awake again, but El felt a tremor in the sticks. She checked the onboard diagnostics, but her console reported same as before. Everything green. While they descended, El asked the ship for more details. Run a deep diag for me. The ship chirped, happy to do more than one thing at once. El bought the skids of the Tyche to the deck, a gentle creak as the hull settled against the ground.
El watched through the ship’s cams as the ground team came back aboard, hurried steps and furtive backward glances all around. “Looks like they saw a little action down there,” she said to Saveria.
“But they came out okay.”
“This time, sure.” El snorted. “I swear, we lead charmed lives. I should have been dead a hundred times over, and I’m the least lucky person here.”
“Being lucky sounds good,” offered Saveria.
“Better than skill, any day of the week,” said El. She toggled the comm. “Everyone on board? No one leave anything behind?”
Kohl squinted up at a cam. “I didn’t get any souvenirs.”
El watched Hope approach him, holding out one of the AI’s railguns. “October? Here. I saved it for you.”
“Thanks, Hope,” said Kohl. He hefted the weapon. “I figure this needs a custom mount.”
“I’ll help,” said Hope.
“Aaaaand that’s a wrap,” said El, clicking the comm off. “Cap’ll be up here before long.”
“I know,” said Saveria. “Need to get out of his chair.”
“Eh,” said El. “We’ll see. I hear you’re learning to fly.”
“Chad says we need to,” said Saveria, looking at the control set in front of her. “I’m okay.”
“Okay ain’t good enough for a goddess,” said El.
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