The Saints of Salvation [British Ed.]

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Oh, sweet Mary.

  Jessika’s icon splashed across her tarsus lens. ‘It’s coming, Kandara. The onemind is sending something into the hangar for us. Get out of there. Now!’

  Kandara fired her magpistol into Odd Quint, five wyst bullets mashing every internal organ and finally its brain.

  Her tarsus lens splashed the helmet sensor image of the corridor behind her as she jogged away from the dead quint. Right where it curved into a vanishing point, jagged shadows were flowing along the bulging walls. She sprinted past the grenades, then triggered them.

  Debris slammed into her back, sending her sprawling painfully across the dark slick of simmering fluids. Several caution icons splashed amber, but her suit integrity held. She forced herself up onto her knees, wincing at the pain. When she twisted around, the corridor was blocked by a pile of rubble.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Jessika asked.

  ‘Just about. I stopped them. And, Jessika, I got it. I killed the bastard that shot Alik.’

  ‘All right. We’ve put a pressure balloon on Cal’s arm. It should hold. You need to get back here.’

  ‘Yeah. On my way.’

  It took an effort, but she managed to get up onto her feet. She swayed around – although maybe it was the corridor wobbling around her. She couldn’t be sure.

  Chunks of rock rolled down the pile blocking the corridor. ‘Huh?’ She blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing. More rock was rolling down, pushed out of the scree by dark worms.

  ‘Oh, Mother Mary.’

  The worm shapes fell out of the holes they’d made and started slithering along the ground; more started to wriggle though behind them. There must have been hundreds of the things. She’d seen them enough times on feeds from Earth’s cities right after their shields collapsed. Capturesnakes.

  Kandara turned and ran.

  Dellian’s Squad

  Enclave

  Dellian was doing his best not to let his worry show. Body posture easy; he was in his armour, clamped into the troop carrier’s rack, an immobile nonhuman metallic statue. Nobody could read anything from that. Voice, though . . . that might be a giveaway. So he only talked to the squad in short, emotionless sentences. Because no one will be able to tell anything from that. Right?

  It had all been going according to plan. Arrival in the enclave star system. Flying through the gateway. Deploying the troop carrier. That was when the weird crap began. They lost comms with the Morgan and the rest of the armada, except for other troop carriers, and even that contact was intermittent.

  Then Yirella contacted the troop carrier and ordered them back into the Morgan, where they’d be safe. Delight at hearing her voice, knowing she was okay, was immediately blunted by the rest of the tactical situation. The Olyix had done something to the enclave, creating temporal havoc within the armada. Resolution ships had come pouring through the gateway to devastate the helpless corpus warships. And worst of all, Tilliana and Ellici were in the clinic. They were okay, Yirella assured the squad, but needed treatment. She was taking over tactical.

  Another reason Dellian was glad he was inside his suit: He knew he’d be swapping perturbed glances with the rest of the squad. Yirella was brilliant, and frighteningly determined, but maybe not the best to be directing them under pressure. And pressure didn’t come any greater than this.

  The whole squad cheered when Ainsley destroyed the power rings, killing the enclave, but Dellian’s command channel showed him the terrible price that victory came with. He didn’t share it with the squad; he couldn’t allow them to be distracted when they arrived at an arkship.

  Yirella ordered the troop ships to launch again. Then came the truly crazy news, which he immediately dismissed as an Olyix trap – and a nasty one, too.

  ‘The Saints are dead,’ he told her over the secure channel.

  ‘Our analysis of the message gives it a seventy per cent probability of being genuine. It was Saint Kandara.’

  ‘The Olyix have had ten thousand years to put a perfect fake together.’

  ‘But why bother?’ she argued. ‘We’re here. We’re going to put our squads into the arkship. If it’s a fake message, we’ll know right away.’

  ‘Yeah, when the arkship explodes and takes all of us out with it.’

  ‘Again, what’s the point, Del? They must know we’re going to win this part of the campaign. We will take the arkships. And they’d know we’d be sceptical of any message, especially one that cuts off. All that’s going to do is make you even more alert and cautious when you get on board the Salvation of Life.’

  ‘When I get on board?’

  ‘I can assign that hangar to someone else.’

  He gritted his teeth in dismay. He’d lived with that image of the Avenging Heretic dying in a flaring nuclear hell for too long. It was his reality. This news was opening up old wounds, and the worry that he was setting himself up for an emotional fall. But if there’s a chance, however tiny . . .

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Stand by.’

  The Morgan altered its trajectory slightly, curving around to match orbits with the source of the brief message. The arkship in polar orbit that was supposed to be the Salvation of Life did match the parameters of every record from old Earth. Not that it was much different from any of the other arkships and Welcome ships encircling the gas giant.

  The armada battle cruisers flew on ahead to attack the Deliverance ships that were clustered protectively along the polar orbit. Dellian watched the clashes. They seemed so irrelevant – small flashes of bright white light, as if the last twinkles were flaring their way to death. It seemed remote, somehow. The troop carrier’s sensors were providing him with an excellent image of the planet’s gargantuan magnetic bow wave. In contrast to the carnage the armada was inflicting, he found them utterly beautiful, shining like multiple halo wings as the world circled endlessly through this strange realm.

  ‘The defence ships have been cleared,’ Yirella told him. ‘You’re go for entry.’

  The troop carrier accelerated in towards the massive cylinder of rock, bringing back too many memories. Small explosions were blooming all across the rock as the attack cruisers destroyed the Salvation of Life’s defence systems. Now that they were close, there were patterns in the rock – strata lines and small craters that corresponded to the old records. The jagged rim where the rear quarter had been separated to reveal the wormhole terminus was an exact match.

  ‘They couldn’t fake that, could they?’ he asked.

  ‘Theoretically yes,’ Yirella said. ‘But they had no reason.’

  ‘Other than that they’ve been expecting us.’

  ‘Do you want to abort?’

  ‘No.’

  The troop carrier swooped around the arkship and eased its way into one of the craters circling the midsection. The crater floor had a rectangular entrance cut into it, with a tunnel that curved up into the interior. It was barely wide enough for the troop carrier to fit in.

  Twenty seconds later they emerged into a hangar.

  ‘What the Saints happened here?’ Falar asked.

  ‘Explosive decompression,’ Xante said. ‘That’s probably why the message got cut off.’

  ‘The emergency seals activated,’ Mallot said. ‘It’s a hard vacuum now.’

  ‘Egress, pattern three,’ Dellian ordered. ‘Assume hostiles.’

  ‘Don’t you mean hostages?’ Falar said.

  ‘Pattern three.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Eighteen different hatches opened in the troop ship’s fuselage. The cohort leapt out, speeding into the big empty hangar. Several of them nuzzled up at the sites of the most violent damage, where there’d clearly been a lot of gunfire.

  ‘Proton pellets,’ Dellian read off his optik display. Which was almost a relief. Their armour’s mirrorfabrik carapace could withstand those quite easily. You’d get shaken up inside, but the cohort would take care of the attacker
swiftly enough.

  ‘Let’s get a picture of what’s up those corridors,’ Dellian said. ‘Falar, Janc, Uret, take the left-hand side of the hangar. The rest of us: right.’

  The cohorts began to scamper into position, splitting into duos at the start of each gap that led out of the hangar. There was nothing in the immediately visible parts. Small airborne drones floated along the hangar roof and hovered by each tunnel entrance. They drifted in.

  ‘I got a burst of air here,’ Xante said. ‘The emergency seal up there may be failing.’

  ‘Okay,’ Dellian said. ‘Whatever happened in here was recent, so let’s be—’

  An explosion registered up the tunnel.

  ‘Delta cover,’ Dellian declared. It was all he could do not to smile. His cohort might be able to read his every intention, but his friends were equally empathic. They were already deploying as he gave the order.

  Xante and Uret jumped and clung on to the ceiling. Clawing up into the battered pipe trunks, they were joined by a dozen of the cohort. Dellian himself leapt back under the troop ship, where one of the landing struts acted as a barrier. The rest of the cohorts fanned out, some sinking onto their haunches ready to lunge at whatever came out of the tunnel.

  ‘Visual,’ Xante yelled. ‘It’s a . . . Saints! Human.’

  ‘Confirm,’ Dellian told him.

  ‘Human shape. Mass and thermal authentic. Crude suit design, not armour. Small weapons.’

  Dellian studied the image in his optic, feeling his heart rate climb. Either this was an astonishingly detailed lure that even Yirella could only dream of, or – ‘Okay, back away. Let them come.’ Two shoulder-mounted cannon slid up and aligned on the tunnel entrance.’

  ‘You getting this?’ he asked Yirella.

  ‘Yes.’

  The spacesuited figure charged into the hangar and immediately saw the exoarmour hellhounds that were the cohort, hunched down poised to jump. Its reaction verged on comical – limbs flailing, desperately trying to slow. Boots slipped on the floor slicked by juices, and it fell on its arse, skidding along.

  Dellian’s suit detected a radio signal.

  ‘Shit shit shit,’ a woman yelled. ‘Jessika, I got made. They’re everywhere.’

  ‘Hold fire,’ Dellian commanded. His suit genten was flashing up a voice pattern match. For a moment his throat wouldn’t actually work. ‘Saint Kandara?’ he gasped. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘What?’ The suit shifted around fast, pistol swinging in a wide arc, switching between the two closest cohort exoskeletons. ‘Who’s that?’

  That’s military training, was all Dellian could think. ‘I’m squad leader Dellian,’ he said. ‘I’m under the troop carrier. I’m going to stand up. Just . . . let’s take this easy.’

  The pistol swung in his direction. He held his arms above his head and stood.

  ‘Are you things actually human?’ Kandara asked.

  ‘Well, yeah!’

  ‘Mary, limbs got strange since we left. And you’re big, too.’

  ‘No, this is just my suit.’

  The rest of the squad was emerging from cover.

  Kandara rolled around abruptly, pointing her pistol along the corridor she’d come from. ‘I hope it’s a combat suit!’

  ‘Are you really Saint Kandara?’ Xante asked breathlessly.

  ‘Fuck,’ she yelled. ‘Here they come.’

  Sensor alarms from the aerial drones went off. A dark tide slithered out of the tunnel. Dellian stared in shock at capturesnakes right out of the history files. The squad and their cohorts opened fire.

  Saints

  Salvation of Life

  Callum was trying to keep his cool. Not easy. He’d been tense for so long now that he was frightened any attempt to relax and go with the flow would make him cry. Not that it mattered, because no one would see it. Nothing human. Or nothing he recognized as human, anyway.

  Kandara had led a squad of invasion soldiers to the cave – two types in frankly terrifying exoskeleton armour. The first were human-ish, with limbs that had too many joints, while the second were a pack of demonic robot warriors arisen from nightmares. Both were too big to get in through the gap in the tunnel wall unless they ripped the rock apart. By the look of their suit limbs, they probably didn’t even need weapons to do that.

  His arm was throbbing badly by then – the kind of drug-dulled pain that was frightening because the sedative couldn’t eliminate it. And the ridiculous balloon Jessika had fabricated in the initiator made it look like he’d got his arm stuck inside a beach ball.

  The squad escorted them to the hangar, where a ship from the human armada was waiting. Their leader was called Dellian, whose voice over the radio came over as a strange mix of teenage excitement and religious reverence. And why the bloody hell does he keep calling us Saints?

  That question died on Callum’s lips when he saw the hangar. The firefight had left it strewn with the wreckage of busted capturesnakes and huntspheres that’d been cracked open like metallic eggs – eggs whose insides were a churn of molten metal and plastic . . . and charred quint flesh.

  It was a vivid contrast going into the troop carrier, which was like being inside a machine where every surface had been coated in black chrome. But when the airlock sealed and the atmosphere came up to pressure, Dellian sank to his first set of knees, and the top of his armour hinged up.

  Callum studied the young man intently; there was something not quite right about the features that he couldn’t define. Head too . . . wide? Or maybe the thick neck was too short? He gave up trying to work it out and unlocked his own helmet.

  ‘It’s really you,’ Dellian said. ‘Saint Callum.’

  Yuri and the others took their helmets off, and Dellian stared around with a dazed expression, then started crying.

  ‘Come on,’ an embarrassed Callum said. ‘We’re not that bad looking.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Dellian said, grimacing as if he was in pain. ‘I saw the Avenging Heretic explode. We thought you were all dead.’

  ‘You saw it?’ a frowning Jessika asked.

  ‘Yeah. I kind of got neurovirused by a onemind. That image was part of breaking me.’

  ‘Well, fuck,’ Yuri grunted. ‘So you’ve been fighting the Olyix for a while, then?’

  ‘All my life. All of us have. And you were our inspiration, the five of you – our Saints. What you did, sacrificing everything to challenge the Olyix, it has been our guidance since our ancestors fled Earth. I’m so sorry we didn’t get here in time to save Saint Alik.’

  ‘Saint Alik,’ Kandara said with a wry smirk. ‘How about that?’

  ‘You know what he’d say about it, don’t you?’ Yuri said.

  ‘What?’ Dellian asked.

  ‘He’d be very honoured,’ Callum said quickly, before Yuri could reveal Alik’s true opinion.

  ‘Uh, we need to get you to the Morgan now,’ Dellian said. ‘It’ll be safer for you, and Saint Callum can get his arm treated in one of our clinics. I have to go and lead my squad into the Salvation of Life. We’re part of the clean-out phase.’

  ‘Clean-out?’

  Dellian’s guileless face hardened. ‘Yirella is dealing with the onemind, but we’re going to exterminate the quint on board.’

  Callum shrugged, which made him wince. ‘Okay then.’

  A portal expanded at the far end of the cluttered chamber. ‘I’d like to talk to you,’ Dellian said. ‘Afterwards. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Sure.’

  So they went through the portal. It was like walking back into a corporate headquarters, though perhaps the walls were whiter than any Connexion office block, the air filtering not so sterile. And the people . . . who weren’t people, in the biological sense. They were greeted by epicene androids with black skin, a good half-metre taller than even Yuri. The androids were all called Yirella, which didn’t help clarify anything. But they showed Callum and the others to a clinic. That at least was reassuringly normal, though the medical equipmen
t was a lot smaller and sleeker than anything he’d seen before.

  Several other bays were occupied. Callum was sitting on a bed opposite a pair of amazingly old women. Even back on Earth in his time, only the poorest people had ever looked that old.

  ‘What happened to them?’ he asked the two androids helping to remove his spacesuit.

  ‘Victims of war,’ one of the androids replied. ‘Fighting the Olyix meant a lot of sacrifices. I wasn’t expecting it to be so . . . brutal. It has been very personal for me.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m starting to realize just how much I’ve left behind. We really are time travellers, aren’t we?’

  The Yirella android who had just removed the protective balloon from his arm nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Though it is a one-way trip, I’m afraid,’ she said.

  Callum couldn’t actually look at his arm; the damage and protruding bone made him feel sick. Another android appeared, white, and smaller than the black ones, with an anatomy that was definitely male. It even wore a pair of green shorts. It was holding a long blue sleeve that looked as if it had been knitted out of fat silk.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked, then looked at the android’s face. ‘Ainsley?’

  ‘Not any more,’ the white android said. ‘Sorry, I’m also Yirella. I just thought it would be more reassuring for you to have a familiar-looking aspect in a medical environment. This must all be very disorienting.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’re not wrong there. This – none of this – is how I expected our mission to end.’

  ‘What were you expecting?’

  ‘Not to get this far, frankly. I’m still suspicious that this is a dream, and my brain is really in an Olyix cocoon.’

  ‘Trust me, you’re not.’

  He lay back as the android with Ainsley’s face gently slipped the blue sleeve over his arm, plugging its tubes and cables into a silver pillar at the top of the bed. His phantom pain finally vanished as the sleeve inflated; he sighed in relief. The tubes began to sway as fluids flowed along them. One was a horrible brown colour. He looked away again.