Ancestral Machines

by Michael Cobley

  Suddenly words started appearing, letter by letter, across her field of vision.

  RensikRensikRensik this is–you must move maintainer craft forward–aim it at forcefield generators–nearest is tagged–intention is to deactivate hyperspace defences most dangerous to ship fleet.

  She paused, trying to get a sense of the craft’s controls, dredging up details from those endless studies of game mechanisms…

  Left thumb forward–right thumb reverse.

  Well, obviously, she thought, carefully blip-thrusting to get under way. Looking around she saw that a visual overlay had given one of the asterisk things a small blinking orange dot. Feeling more confident Sam banked the craft round and aimed it at the generator. As she drew near she saw that shimmering spikes radiated from a multifaceted core which turned and spun restlessly. The shimmery spikes loomed bigger and bigger, emphasising the smallness of Sam’s craft.

  When close enough menu row will appear–left forefinger shifts highlight–right forefinger activates–go to 3rd menu option 5 and activate.

  She followed the drone’s instructions, selected the menu and the option, and prodded it with her finger. The menu vanished and the radial spikes shrank, pulling in on themselves while the faceted core stopped moving.

  “Well, wonder what I just did,” she said.

  You have switched a forcefield generator/projector into scrutiny and repair mode–manoeuvre towards next tagged target–you must state-change an additional twenty-seven.

  “Twenty-seven?” Sam said, reversing and turning the craft towards the next generator, which was showing on her HUD overlay. “Has the Earthsphere fleet entered the Warcage yet? Is it under attack?”

  Yes yes.

  A mixture of anger and horror shifted in the pit of her stomach.

  “Can you show me a real-time visual of what is happening?”

  Yes but shall not–vital that you complete mission targets without distraction–completion will preserve 61 per cent of ES fleet.

  Which was, of course, the correct response. Only skill and precision mattered now–there would be time enough for grieving later.

  Aiming his beam pistol over the edge of the balcony, Pyke tracked a couple of black-helmeted defenders, convinced that they were senior officers of some kind. Sounds of fighting seemed to be echoing up from all sides below them but he knew that this was just sound refraction from the complex architecture. The battle wasn’t going too badly, according to reports he was hearing on the comm channels, and was focused on the Shuskar positions in and just in front of the tower entrance.

  When the shooting had started twenty-odd minutes ago, chances for the away team had looked doubtful. The Shuskars’ guns-for-hire, the Avang and the Cregrin, had rushed out of the tower, already firing. Powerful, accurate volleys took the Malginori by surprise, stalling their advance then forcing them to retreat. Pyke and the crew had been up on the concourse level above the fighting, but he’d been determined not to intervene until a portal bridge was established with a balcony about four floors above the main. Once Punzho gave the thumbs-up, Pyke had to get Ancil and Oleg to stop firing at Avang and Cregrin targets before sending them through the portal. Kref even got to fire off that clunky launcher, which wreaked a satisfying amount of havoc among the Shuskars’ well-armed goon squad. After Kref was gone, Punzho had shut off the portal generator and hurried after him, closely followed by Pyke. By the time they were all across, return fire, mainly mini-mortar rounds and every kind of grenade, was blanketing the area where they’d been standing mere moments before. Explosions ripped holes in the concourse, gouges in the walls and pillars, eventually causing a ragged section to collapse onto the level below.

  Still in contact with Mav and Hechec, Pyke had been relieved to hear that no one had been hurt by falling rubble, but he was aggravated by the casualty rate the Malginoris were suffering. He’d promised G’Brozen Mav that he would get the Shuskars’ attention.

  “Okay, boys, same again,” he’d said. “But this time, no more Mister Nice Bastard!”

  So for a few blessed moments they were in Fire-At-Will Heaven. Alongside Ancil and Oleg, Pyke had laid down a withering hail of suppressing fire while Kref let fly another couple of rounds from the launcher. At the same time Punzho was lining up the portals to make a bridge to another balcony higher up the tower. Return fire from below came faster this time and more accurate than before, with one mortar round exploding against the tower’s armoured facade overhead, raining hot fragments on them. The portals were open so Pyke rushed them through one by one, ducking as ricochets spanged off the tower. Last to leave again, Pyke had felt a flash of heat from an incendiary round which burst against the balcony rail just as he was plunging through the portal.

  So there they were, ten or eleven floors up from the combat zone, almost too far for their weapons’ ranges, although his beamer had a scope that let him zoom in on ground details. Which was why he was tracking one of the Shuskar ally officers, urban camouflage, black helmet, armoured gauntlets, who, even from this height, seemed tall enough and brawny enough to be his nemesis, Khorr. There was a curious lull in the fighting and the officer was crouched behind an angled barrier, talking with two other troopers–then someone stepped into view, stopping to converse with the helmeted officer, a burly newcomer with a shaven head and some distinctive leather body armour. Khorr, you miserable puz-nozzle! he thought, squinting down the sights. I’m gonna take a dead sewer-toad and ram it sideways down yer…

  And without warning his beamer pistol fired off a single shot. Through the scope he saw the energy bolt flare off the ground at Khorr’s feet, just a second before his own surprise made him gasp and sit back.

  “Chief, what was that?” said Ancil.

  “Not sure, but everyone keep their head down–now!” His hand had seemed to move by itself.

  Sounds of firing from below resumed, the cracks and zips of slug and flechette light arms mingled with the stuttering buzz of energy weapons. Nothing seemed to be coming their way, which was a relief–Pyke edged up to the balcony and sneaked a look down at the concourse through the beamer scope. No one was paying attention to the tower’s heights, only on killing the other side.

  “Good enough,” he said. “We can pick up where we left off, and give them Shuskar mercs a good belting.”

  “Uh, Captain,” said Kref, pointing. “Someone’s got their eyes on us…”

  He looked round and saw a small, single-seater fan-car hovering high up the side of the tower. Everyone else glanced up, just as the machine sideslipped away out of sight behind the curve of the tower. Pyke frowned and thought for a moment.

  “Oleg,” he said. “How’s yer hearing?”

  “Seems pretty good–why?”

  “I need you to weld yer lughole to them doors and listen for anyone moving around inside. Punzho–get the portal machine set up, double quick time.”

  That Shuskar pilot must have seen them, so it was just a matter of time before some bunch of thugs came a-knocking. Tense seconds crawled by, a minute, two. With the entry portal projected and stable, Punzho bent his head over the control panel for long moments, then turned and nodded to Pyke, who stood, holstering his beam pistol. He glanced at Oleg who, ear pressed against the door, shook his head. Then Pyke peered across at the nearest curve of the highest concourse level, which was about five yards lower than the balcony, and there was the exit portal, a familiar pulsing dark oval.

  “Okay, Kref, you’re first, then Ancil, then Punzho–you’ll have to be quick with the disconnect and getting the device packed, though. Then it’ll be Oleg, then me–got it?”

  There were nods all round.

  “Tremendous–Kref, on yer way!”

  And even as the big Henkayan crouched and ducked through the gate, Pyke heard something, a voice whispering NEAR, and felt icy cold tingling in his fingers.

  Holy humping hell! Those bloody Incarnalith shards cannot be waking up, not right now!

  The whispers kept repeatin
g, gradually getting louder. By the time Punzho had powered down the generator and was manhandling it and the tripod through the portal, the voice in Pyke’s head was loud and insistent–NEAR! NEAR! NEAR!–and he dared not look at his hands for fear of what he might see, but when he furiously gestured for Oleg to hurry after Punzho, Oleg looked and Oleg saw.

  “Captain, your hands…”

  Near–Vengeance–Near–Vengeance said the words in his hands, over and over. Pyke gritted his teeth and laughed harshly.

  “Never mind that, just get yer arse through that gate before it packs in.”

  Frowning, Oleg nodded and dashed into the dark oval. Pyke readied himself, took two steps… and felt his legs give way, pitching him forward onto the balcony floor.

  No–they are near–vengeance!

  He made a grab at the balcony rail but hot pain spiked through his hands and up his arms, forcing him to sprawl on the floor. And that was when his stomach started to feel buoyant, and there was the sensation of falling as if somehow the balcony had become detached from the tower and was plummeting towards the main concourse. Zero-Gee, the sensible part of his brain was saying, because some gouging pusmuncher’s deactivated the tower’s artificial gravity. Also, the pain was still stabbing in his hands.

  Great–those bloody shards decide to turn me into a pincushion just when I really really need to get over to that fraggin’ portal…

  Gritting his teeth against the nerve-scraping jabs of pain, he pushed against the nearby balcony rail, propelling himself towards the dark pulsing oval, just as it winked out.

  “Aw, ya skaggin’ arse!”

  Seconds later the gravity came back on and Pyke tumbled to the floor of the balcony, landing awkwardly on his shoulder. The voice was still pounding in his head, every bellowed repetition of the word NEAR making it feel as if his eyes were bugging out of his face, making it feel as if every vein and artery was bulging from his skin.

  When the balcony doors flew apart he scrambled desperately for his beamer pistol, got it out of its holster, despite the hooks-in-acid pain tearing through his fingers, only to have it wrenched from his grasp.

  “Take him inside,” said a throaty, gleeful voice. “The Lords are waiting.”

  As they carried his unresisting form into the tower he realised that he was in the grip of a delirium, and not one of the good ones either. The voice was still banging on about something or someone being NEAR but at least it wasn’t roaring and shaking the foundations of his brain. Didn’t that Inheritor machine say that these shards were the remains of an ancestral Zavri, a general called, er… Kaldro-Vryn, that was it. Well, so far, Pyke thought, old Kaldro’s plan had been a bit of a bust, an irredeemable crock of skag. And any idea that the Inheritor machine had of gaining control of the Shuskar HQ was likewise completely ganked.

  A hand slapped his face, bringing him out of the delirium enough for him to comprehend his surroundings. He was being held upright by a pair of brawny and pungent goons in a long room lit by glowing ceiling cubes which revealed in ravaged detail the four figures standing and regarding him. Their bodies were emaciated yet their muscles were prominent and knobbly. Their skin was blotchy, their scalps hairless, their features lopsided. And while each had slight differences in appearance and height, all four had that bizarre, outsize, grotesquely mutated left arm. In each you could see how over time the flesh had grown and moulded itself around the ridges and edges of the sentient bioweapon that controlled it.

  One of them approached him, limping slightly, its weapon-arm cradled in the other. The skin of the bioweapon was thin and mottled and Pyke was startled when a lumpy nodule opened to reveal a large single eye, which gazed at him. Possessed by a mad thought, Pyke was about to wink at it when a bony hand grabbed his jaw and made him face front.

  “So you are Pyke, the Human nuisance–I am Gun-Lord Xra-Uval. You may remember Xra-Huld mentioning my interest in you. We appreciate the boldest and bravest of those that oppose us, occasionally honouring them by making them our hosts.”

  Pyke felt caught between the demented chanting in his head and his visceral loathing for the creature standing before him.

  “Ah, sorry, sweetheart, but yer not my type, y’know… but I do know someone who’s dying to get manky with ye.”

  In his head the word NEAR was now alternating with the word NOW, together pounding out a brutal backbeat while the electric chill in his hands grew sharper and colder. Pyke knew what was about to happen, and how it would happen, and was fairly sure it was going to be unpleasant.

  The first shard burst out of the skin just below his wrist, the sensation falling between an icy claw and a hot stab. The Gun-Lord Xra-Uval gasped and stepped back, but that first shard wasn’t meant for him. Pyke heard the guard on the left make a surprised sound, then a choking, gurgling noise. It released Pyke’s arm and staggered off to the side, sprawling on the floor. The second shard dealt with the guard on the right, and after that Pyke’s hands became smothered in a torrent of cuts and wounds, gashes and lacerations, as dark splinters of the Incarnalith tore themselves free of his flesh. As he slumped to his knees, he looked unsteadily at his hands, almost blurred by the outflux of shards–even so, he could still see that they were bloody and horrifically slashed.

  Head wavering, he made himself look up and saw clouds of shards swirling around all the Gun-Lords–two were still upright, pressed up against the wall, swatting feebly at the shard-swarm, while the other pair were on their hands and knees, crawling towards the exit. The light in the room was throbbing too, a slow pulse between darkness and light that was as regular as breathing. Against his will, Pyke could feel his own breathing synchronising with the pulsing light, growing deeper and harsher with each exhalation. Sweat dripped from his brow and he suddenly realised, just as he let out one long exhalation that lengthened as the light dimmed and darkened, that no more dark splinters were escaping his hands. He could feel his chest contracting and emptying but somehow he was unable to breathe in, unable to move.

  Then the light sprang back to normal, bright and constant. At first Pyke could only gasp for air, coughing from an irritated throat, then he realised that three of the Gun-Lords were incapacitated, one standing but immobile, two crawling feebly on the floor. A darkshard-swarm still hovered in one corner of the ceiling. Looking closer at the paralysed Gun-Lord Xra-Uval, Pyke saw that the deformed, swollen arm–where the biomech parasite was embedded–had turned a dark, inky blue, the colour of the Incarnalith shards. The fourth Gun-Lord was a motionless, emaciated husk lying face down on the floor, while its parasitic biomech, now free of the host, was writhing determinedly across the floor towards Pyke.

  Pyke’s body felt like a puny, rubbery thing and even though he barely had enough strength to drag himself along, the parasite was still moving faster than he was.

  “Hey, c’mon!” he gasped, glancing at the shard-swarm hovering up at the ceiling. “Job’s not done yet…”

  The grotesque biomech was just inches away from Pyke’s foot when at last the shard-swarm descended upon it, covering it from snout to tail, and there was a susurrus of tiny slicing sounds as they carved their way inside.

  Relieved but exhausted, Pyke nevertheless forced himself to crawl across the room till he could see Xra-Uval up close. The Gun-Lord’s haggard face was contorted with horror and rage, a face with eyes gone dark and crystalline.

  “What… have you done to us?” it said in a strangled voice. “Release me! I command you—”

  “It’s called payback, ya poisonous dung-snake–now die!”

  The Gun-Lord tried to speak but all that came out were tiny gasps. The lights dimmed again, there was a ghastly papery sigh, and those dark eyes began to disintegrate. As did the biomech itself, including the long segmented spine that was wrapped around the arm, winding up to the side of the head. It began to crack and split, fragments and slivers falling to the floor. Then Xra-Uval’s frozen, crawling figure toppled onto its side as the crumbling collapse continued.


  The same deathly process was at work on the other Gun-Lords, now reduced to gaunt, spindle-shanked corpses lying in scattered piles of pale grit and powder. Surveying the devastation, Pyke thought how little control he’d had over it, fervently hoping that any shards still inside him would not wreak the same havoc on poor Dervla’s body.

  The lights had come back up and he was starting to feel his strength returning. He had already noticed a tinny whispering sound but when it didn’t go away as his faculties returned he suddenly realised that it was coming from his headset, which had been dislodged by all the action. Gingerly he fitted it back in his ears and was treated to a blast of Ancil’s voice yelling “… respond, chief! We’re still out here on the concourse, and I’m gonna keep shouting down this channel till either you say something or someone tells me you’re dead and even then—”

  “Whoa, steady on there, I’m fine,” Pyke said. “Got a headache the size of Kref’s boots—”

  “Chief, you’re alive!… He’s alive, he’s okay.”

  “What’s the latest?” he said. “Are we winning yet?”

  “Oh yeah, chief, the Shuskars’ allies suddenly pulled back into the tower just a few minutes ago–Mav and those Malgo boys are securing the entrance, supposed to be sending a team your way.”

  “What about Lt Brock? Did she stop the ES fleet getting sliced and diced?”

  “Not heard anything about that,” Ancil said. “But chief, you’re not gonna believe what happened with the portal machine.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve crocked it! Swear I’m going to dock your pay.”

  “No, no, it’s still working like a dream–it’s just that, y’know when the portal gate disappeared over on your side?”

  “Oh aye, not a moment I’m likely to forget.”

  “Well, it didn’t disappear on our side, like it’s done before. And you’ll never guess who walked right out of it!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT