But neither the fresh memory of the robot that had crawled from the ice nor Ellis’s jokes could account for a fraction of the stress Peter experienced every second of every day.
Even when he managed to sleep, his dreams were dark, fevered things. The reason was that adenosarcoma had finally begun to win the fight it had waged with his daughter for years.
Peter’s business was booming. With the war on Eresos, and the trouble on Alex, there was a backlog of people who suddenly wanted nothing more than to live on a comet, millions of miles away from the inner system. Peter had recently leased a fourth comet hopper, and all four were fully operational, meaning he developed four comets at a time, with all of the materials he needed to do so—another luxury he’d rarely enjoyed before the boon brought by the discovery of the mech he’d sold to Darkstream.
A booming business meant having enough to cover the exorbitant costs involved with getting Sue Anne the advanced medical procedures she needed, this far out in the Belt. He’d even sprung for an experimental treatment, fresh from the cutting edge of medical science. Sue Anne hadn’t been a good candidate for the treatment, given her deteriorated health, and to convince the researchers to accept her into their program, Peter had had to grease their palms considerably—to the tune of quadruple the cost of what more traditional treatments cost him.
Despite everything he’d done, the specialists he’d paid to come out to the Belt to personally oversee Sue Anne’s care now told him she had mere weeks to live, if that.
Upon learning the news, his wife had begged Peter to come home. “You have to be at your daughter’s side…” Brianne hadn’t quite been able to bring herself to say the words “when she dies.”
“Sue Anne needs you,” she said instead.
But Peter had refused. There was no chance he was coming back. Not yet, at any rate. If Sue Anne died, she would die with him in the harness, working as hard as he could to save her.
That way, his conscience would never be able to tell him that he hadn’t done absolutely everything he could to save his daughter’s life.
Something will change. The doctors will come up with something. They have to.
He didn’t truly believe that, but it was what he told himself at night, to snatch what little sleep he was able to.
Now, he stood in the Whale’s bridge, watching on the small viewscreen as they approached the next comet slated for development.
Ellis joined him, and they both watched as the comet grew larger on the screen.
“What do you reckon they’ll end up building here, boss?” Ellis asked. “Maybe a shopping mall, this time? A theme park, perhaps?”
That did make Peter smile. It would be a long time before the Steele System’s economy was developed enough to support a shopping mall anywhere, let alone in the Belt.
“If you don’t get suited up soon, you’d better hope they build an unemployment line there, Ellis.”
Ellis stared at him, blinking. “Was that…was that a joke, boss?”
“Yes, Ellis. It was a joke.”
“Ah. It was funny! Sorry. Not used to hearing those from you.”
Peter felt his smile tighten up, and he said nothing else.
They donned their pressure suits, and this time, Peter did ask Ellis to triple-check his, while he performed the same service for his employee.
“Safety first, eh, boss?”
“That’s right.”
By now, he and his two employees had figured out their routine, as well as their division of labor. Without having to say anything, Peter and Ellis scouted a suitable spot to start drilling, deployed the hose, and extended the radar from the side of the Whale.
As for Noah, he remained inside and forgot to turn on the water harvester until Peter reminded him, which reliably delayed everything, every single time.
Peter really should have terminated Noah a while ago, but he didn’t have the heart. The man had children of his own, back on Eresos, and Peter knew he sent most of his paychecks back to their village’s council, so that they could bolster security.
Personally, if Peter had been in Noah’s situation, he would have been working like a dog. Hell, he basically was in Noah’s situation, and that was exactly what he was doing. But he supposed not everyone had the get-up-and-go that others did.
“Boss…”
It was Ellis, examining the results from the step-frequency scan.
“What is it this time?” Peter asked.
“I think you’d have a better look at this.”
Ellis flicked the radar image over to Peter’s HUD.
It showed a mech, which looked identical to the first one that Peter and Jake had found.
“Boss!” This time, urgency filled Ellis’s voice. “Boss, I just had a look at an updated image of this thing, and it’s in a different position. This thing is moving, boss!”
Ellis sent the second image over, and Peter reviewed it, nodding grimly.
“It’s trying to escape. Our arrival must have activated it, somehow.”
“What do we do?”
“We get off this comet right now, and we contact Captain Bronson. Let’s move, Ellis.” Peter widened the radio channel to include his other employee. “No need to join us, Noah. We’re coming back in.”
“Why, boss? Something wrong?”
“Don’t worry about it. You just go back to sleep.”
Chapter 32
Coma
Oneiri Team all stood around Roach’s bed in the Valhalla sick bay that Darkstream kept reserved for its soldiers and trainees. Captain Bronson was here, too, hands folded in front of him, eyes glued to the sheet that covered Roach.
Roach was totally unresponsive—deep within a coma that the doctors said could be permanent. Nanobots were hard at work within him, but the technology did not yet exist to repair the sort of damage done to Roach’s brain, which the blood loss had resulted in. Their only hope now was that his brain repaired the necessary connections for consciousness by itself, which the doctors said did happen in rare occasions.
Chief Roach had aged markedly, which Jake hadn’t noticed before. Probably his injuries had accelerated his aging, but Jake knew another reason he hadn’t noticed was how much time they all spent inside their mechs. Though Roach’s face was as hard as it had ever been, his forehead had acquired more lines, and his short black hair now had a couple of gray streaks.
“Isn’t there anyone we should call?” Beth Arkanian asked. “Family? Friends?”
Bronson shook his head. “Gabe wasn’t related to anyone who came with Darkstream to the Steele System. Plus, he mostly kept to himself, outside his interactions with fellow soldiers.” Bronson narrowed his eyes, as though he was thinking. “There was one…” He seemed to glance at Ash. “Never mind. There’s nobody.”
“What’s the situation, down on Eresos, Captain?” Jake said.
That brought a sigh from Bronson. “Not great. The eight Quatro piloting those mechs—quads, you call them, right?—they’ve broken away from their brethren as well as their new Red Company friends, and they’re crossing the Barrens with incredible speed. Tomlinson’s mech is with them, presumably piloted by one of the mercenaries. The expectation is that they’ll start razing villages the moment they encounter them.”
“So, what’s our response going to be?” Ash asked. “From what we’ve seen, the quads are far more powerful than the MIMAS mechs. Just one of them alone nearly killed Chief Roach.”
“You’re going to go back down there and try your best. What else can we do? The alternative is to abandon the people of Eresos, and I’m sure none of you want that. I do have some good news. Based on our study of the Ambler that Chief Roach found after it was taken down by Quatro, we’ve worked out how to make lasers function within a planet’s atmosphere, and your mechs are being outfitted with them as we speak.”
“Well, that’s something,” Henrietta said. “Probably not nearly enough, but something.”
“Why couldn’t we use them
before?” Richaud asked.
Bronson shook his head. “I don’t think I’m able to explain it. Something to do with the atmosphere.”
Marco spoke up. “The problem with lasers in atmospheres has always been that thermal blooming heated the air around the laser and caused the beam to spread out too much, rendering it useless. I’m assuming the solution was to use adaptive optics technology. If you could figure out the correct distribution of mirrors, you could distort the laser beam in a way that canceled the effect of the atmospheric turbulence, tightening up the beam. Is that how they resolved it, Captain?”
“Um…I do recall R&D mentioning mirrors…”
They all fell silent, then, their eyes on Roach’s inert form.
“Is his implant still intact?” Jake asked.
“I don’t remember the doctors saying either way,” Bronson said, “but I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t. Even Zimmerman’s implant was intact, after the alien mech folded inward to pulverize him. Why do you ask?”
“Well, the implant allowed him to control the mech through lucid. Maybe it will allow him to communicate with us in the same way.”
Bronson was nodding. “It’s worth a shot.” He pointed toward an empty bed nearby. “Why don’t you give it a try? Do you have any sedatives on you?”
“Always.” Jake made his way to the bed and lay on top of it, popping one of the sedatives into his mouth as his head hit the pillow.
Soon, he was in lucid. By default, he had his implant set to drop him into a high-lucidity area first, so that he could calibrate the experience he would have while asleep, instead of having to screw around with it before going to bed.
He instructed his implant to connect him via lucid with Roach’s implant. Soon, he found himself inside a tiny village that looked like it was on Eresos. There were bodies strewn all over the ground, most looking like they’d been torn apart by savage beasts, their clothes soaked red.
It didn’t take long for Jake to find Chief Roach. He was standing in front of what looked like the nicest house in the village, staring at a young woman lying on the grass, who wore a bloodstained white dress.
“Chief?”
Roach looked up, his eyes underscored by dark blotches.
Taking care not to move too fast, Jake approached. “Who’s that?” he asked, nodding at the woman.
Silence from Roach.
“She looks like Ash,” Jake said.
“It’s her sister,” Roach said. “Her name was Jess Sweeney.” The chief’s shoulders rose and fell. “Don’t tell Steam you found me here, okay?”
You mean, don’t tell her you were in love with her sister? “Okay.”
“Why are you here?”
“You’re in a coma. Totally unresponsive. Don’t you know that?”
Roach nodded. “Yeah. Again. Why are you here?”
“We… wanted to see whether we could talk to you.”
“Surely you don’t think I can go on being your leader? After this?”
“It’s not just about that. We’re all worried about you.”
“You’re wasting your time.” The chief’s eyes returned to Jess Sweeney’s body. Then they met Jake’s again. “You really want to help me?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can carry my body to the mech you and your father found inside that comet. Put me inside of it.”
For a long time, Jake simply returned the chief’s stare with one of his own. Then, he exited lucid.
When he woke, the others were studying his face expectantly.
“What did he say?” Beth asked.
“He doesn’t want to talk. To anyone.”
Her face fell, and the rest of Oneiri team looked pretty dejected, too. Only Bronson didn’t react.
The rest stuck around for an hour or so more, watching Roach’s motionless body, seldom speaking. After that, they all started to leave, one by one.
At last, it was just Jake and Roach, as well as the three other soldiers occupying beds in the sick bay, none of whom seemed to be paying any attention to Jake.
He detached three separate tubes from the chief’s body, causing the machinery around him to start beeping stridently. When Jake picked him up, the chief didn’t feel as heavy as he’d expected him to.
Ignoring the beeping, as well as the soldier it had woken, who was staring at Jake wearing a perplexed expression, Jake carried Chief Roach through the exit.
An empty wheelchair sat outside sick bay, and Jake lowered the chief into it, his head lolling back.
The hour was late. Jake barely encountered anyone as he rolled Roach across Valhalla Station. Mostly civilians.
One officer—Commander Stevens, Jake read from the man’s nametag—stopped Jake before he entered Darkstream Research and Development.
“Where are you taking Chief Roach, son?”
“We’ve discovered he’s responsive to lucid, sir, even from within his coma. I’ve been ordered to take him to R&D to see about developing an exoskeleton, in order to restore mobility to the chief.” The lie was fairly close to the truth, and it rolled off of Jake’s tongue. That was essentially what Roach had ordered him to do.
“At two in the morning?” Stevens said.
Jake shrugged. “I guess somebody works best during late hours. I just do what I’m told, sir.”
“Very good. Carry on.”
When Jake reached a hatch that required security clearance, he lifted Roach’s hand to the biometric scanner, pressing it against the surface. For the retina scan, Jake hoisted the chief by his armpits and used his shoulder to nudge the man’s face against the sensor.
Roach’s biometrics got them all the way to the titanium-reinforced room that housed the alien mech, which had been repaired since the damage the chief was said to have done to it.
The alien mech didn’t seem to discriminate when it came to who used it—not based on biometrics, anyway. When Jake placed his palm on the machine’s right calf, the back opened, just as it had for Zimmerman and Roach both.
Hauling Roach’s limp body up the ramp and stuffing it into the mech proved to be the most challenging part of the whole process. Once he succeeded, the ramp snapped upward, and Jake leapt clear just in time. He’d been anticipating something like that, and so he’d been ready.
He landed on his butt, sending a jolt of pain through his lower back. He sat there, staring up at the alien mech.
A few seconds later, the mech began to move, turning to stare down at Jake.
Chapter 33
That Which Nullifies
Gabe was whole again.
For as long as the alien mech decided to let him live, he was whole.
“Are you… all right?” Price asked him. The kid was sitting on the floor of the titanium-reinforced room, looking up at him.
The boy who’d first joined Gabe’s training program, so many months ago, had fleshed out into a well-muscled adult: a young man, whose eyes had seen more than they should have by now.
Although Gabe already sensed that he’d regained the capacity for speech, he remained silent. He instructed his implant to call up a map of Alpha Quadrant, and he set his mind to plotting a route between here and the nearest landing bay.
Got it.
He willed both of his arms to turn into cannons, the mech’s scaled surface sliding and shifting to become what he wanted. That done, he pelted the wall with blast after powerful blast of pure energy until it melted away enough for him to fit through if he ducked.
Jake followed him into the corridor. “Sir, where are you going?”
If you’re concerned about the answer, you probably shouldn’t have brought me here.
Gabe strode through the station, not bothering to run. There was no one aboard Valhalla with the ability to stop him from doing what he intended to do, so he adopted a leisurely pace.
A voice mumbled to him inside the mech dream. For the first time, he noticed that the quality of this dream was different from the one he’d experienced while piloti
ng his MIMAS. Sound seemed to echo, here, and even though everything had a slightly hazy quality to it, it also seemed more real.
But “real” wasn’t quite the right word. The world had taken on a dire quality, and it reminded him of times when he’d been extremely tired, times when his own internal voice had seemed to scream inside his head.
This is life, now. Better get used to it.
The mumbling continued all the way to Landing Bay Alpha, though the words were indistinct, and Gabe wasn’t particularly interested in making them out, anyway. Jake followed behind him, running to keep up.
Bet you’re glad I made you do all that PT.
At last, Gabe passed through the wide, sweeping arch that led into the landing bay. Darkstream employees ran from their posts toward him, some of them waving their arms frantically, most of them shouting. Gabe didn’t care to heed their words, either. The forms approaching him were small enough to seem totally insignificant.
He crossed the landing Bay at a measured pace, until he stood before the main airlock, which was designed to admit old UHF combat shuttles, much larger than most of the craft that visited and departed Valhalla.
“You must open the airlock,” Gabe said, speaking for the first time since entering the alien mech. The way his voice filled the entire landing bay pleased him. “If you don’t, I’ll blast through the inner and outer doors, and you’ll all die. Now—quickly, please.”
“Sir,” Jake shouted. “Don’t do this.”
Gabe turned around to face him. “What did you expect? Did you think I would remain on Valhalla? Maybe do some shopping? Dip my giant metal heels in the water at the Endless Beach?”
“I expected you to rejoin Oneiri. To work with us.”
“I told you to leave me behind for the quads. You didn’t, and now you have to live with that choice. Either way, it’s probably best if you behave as though I’m dead.” Turning to face the airlock once more, he roared, “if these doors don’t open within ten seconds, they won’t be there anymore.” His arms morphed to form cannons once again.
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