‘No, Marko, I’m feeling bloody awful. Jan, can you meet me in Medical, please. Harry, get a message to the colonel and to Stephine to hold their positions.’
Over the next half an hour they all, one by one, succumbed to a nasty flu-like virus. Marko felt as if something was slowly grinding on his bones, he ached so badly, but what concerned him most was a harsh burning sensation on his chest. He stripped off his suit and could see five tiny raised lumps on his skin and was reminded of the time years before when an octopoid had touched him in the same place. The tiny lumps itched horribly and he fought the urge to tear his skin apart scratching them. Jan was affected worst of all and, as Marko leant against the medical bulkhead, Ernst whistled up a medical drone to assist in getting her into a cryno unit.
As soon as she was in the unit, and being chilled, Ernst took a blood sample from Marko and, after a few moments, gave his opinion. ‘Marko, it appears that the nanotech for your arm has halted the spread of this virus in your system. It is a manufactured virus — and virulent is the least of it. We need time. Please ask all those who are mobile to get to the cryno chambers themselves as we need to chill them down, otherwise they will probably die. I’ll give you a cocktail of vitamins to boost your system so you can help me and Topaz.’
As Ernst positioned himself against a large medical supplies dispensing cabinet and rapidly loaded what he needed into himself, Marko selected Stephine’s private channel. ‘Stephine, this is Marko. I have not seen the ACEs. Are they with you?’
A very tired sounding Stephine answered. ‘No, Marko, they all elected to go with Colonel White. Glint, are you OK?’
The ACE answered immediately. ‘We are all fine, thank you, Stephine. Marko, the colonel has a most interesting ship. We are learning a great many fascinating things. You really should have a look at this ship when you get better.’
Oh, shit, Marko thought. Glint does not use that sort of language. He is much more direct — and how the hell does he know that I’m not well? Ernst pressed a unit up against Marko’s right arm medical shunt and he felt slightly better. Not much, but enough to function. Marko reached out and tapped Ernst beside where the private circuit communication glasses were normally kept. The panel popped open presenting Marko with the glasses. As he put them on, Ernst advised, ‘We are secure, Marko.’
With a rising panic, Marko quickly said, ‘Glint and the ACEs have found something on the colonel’s ship and he knows that we are unwell. How would he know that? How can we communicate with them, without the colonel knowing?’
The machine was quiet for a few seconds, before replying. ‘That would be basically impossible, I am afraid. Crystal is a remarkable information-gathering AI and would know immediately. I think it best if you disappear. I shall log that you have been placed on ice. Topaz will get that new suit for you; meet him in the cryno chamber. With the exception of you, no other biological currently on Basalt is awake as they are all in cryno sleep.’
Marko groaned. ‘That is very bad. I shall keep these glasses on so we can talk without being listened to.’
He walked slowly down to the cryno chambers, stripped, then climbed into an open unit with Topaz helping and the waiting prototype suit formed around him. Sealed up, he activated it, and waited. It insulated him completely from the cold of the chamber and, of course, none of the systems could get at his permanent medical shunts. Marko decided that Patrick must have overridden them, as they did not attempt to interface.
He found himself moving and realised that the AIs must have activated the emergency evacuation system for the chamber. He was moved quite quickly down through the floor and into a long-term survival pod.
An image of Ernst appeared in Marko’s glasses. ‘Marko. We have overridden the systems; Patrick suspects that something is wrong with the fuel feeds for the Wormhole generators. Suffice to say, if we activated the feeds we would not make it back to any of our bases any time soon. He believes he can circumnavigate the software changes, but it will take time. It would seem that the colonel wants us out of the picture.’
A terrible cold feeling bit right into Marko’s inner being as he realised just how bad the situation was. He felt a tiny spark of fear as he asked: ‘What’s happening with Stephine and Veg?’
Topaz answered through the Ernst comms system. ‘They have just come on board. Veg is already very ill. Far worse than anyone else. Stephine is also badly affected. They are both making their way to cryno and I have sent engineering drones to help them as they have both just collapsed unconscious. It would seem that they have been infected with something much worse than the rest of you. I have instructed the drones to load them into cryno units. We have isolated the virus that you have. Give us a couple of hours and we will be able to help you greatly.’
‘Thanks, Topaz.’
‘Marko,’ Topaz continued, ‘I am sorry but the colonel has just reported an incident on board Crystal that has resulted in the deaths of the two salvage personnel who were with her. She must have placed her own AI on board this ship … whatever it is, it is mimicking Michael and Harry perfectly. I believe that this is a subterfuge to keep the Hauler, Chrysanthemum, from knowing what is occurring here. She has also begun communications with Chrysanthemum, so a great deal of data is now open to her. She has total access to the Cactus 3 core. Unfortunately, I am not able to access any of it.’
Ernst interjected. ‘There is a problem with Patrick. He is becoming very slow. Actually, this may be of advantage to us. He is losing interest in monitoring any internal sensors and also losing control of external door sensors. Topaz and I believe that you must take control of Crystal, eliminate or neutralise the colonel and learn what is happening. We shall work on getting Patrick back to normal, repair the Wormhole generator problems and also check for any other anomalies while we are at it.’
Marko felt a slow rage building inside him. ‘Fuck! Fuck, fuck, but I feel like shit on a stick! OK, OK, I’m onto it. So, how come you two are not affected?’
‘I am sorry,’ Topaz replied, ‘but I cannot answer that. It is possible that the colonel simply did not consider what our capabilities are. Time will tell.’
Marko pushed open the chamber cover and then the access door to the pod. As he moved, he activated the chameleon ware of the suit. Harry and Veg had been working with him on the suit with him for months and they’d made it more like Veg and Stephine’s suits. Much sleeker and a lot more compact than the Administration originals; it was also superbly quiet. He walked down to the engineering deck and looked out through one of the viewing chambers. Crystal was holding station only a couple of hundred metres away with the huge bulk of the Hauler Chrysanthemum hanging above.
He walked across to the opposite side of the deck and opened the small airlock, manually rotating it through. He climbed out onto the external shell and pulled himself around the large curved hull of Basalt until he could see Crystal, then he stood up and ran across the hull plates, building sufficient speed to launch himself across to Crystal, hoping like hell that it would not move in the few minutes it took for the flight across. He didn’t use the small thrusters built into the suit and fervently hoped that Crystal’s sensors could not pick him up as he landed with arms outstretched among the rear rocket nozzles of the colonel’s ship. He decided it was now time to create a little constructive mayhem of his own.
Out of sight of the Hauler, he fired a few laser bursts through two of the partially exposed fuel lines and down into one of the external backup pumps, simulating a micrometeor hit, something that was rare for an individual ship, but happened every day somewhere in the fleet. Fuel started to vaporise from the holes immediately, which he knew would trigger an alarm somewhere, so he pulled himself over to the nearest airlock and waited. A few moments passed before it opened and two maintenance and repair drones flew out, allowing him to slip inside and wait pressed up against the wall.
Ten minutes later the hatch closed and the airlock recycled to allow a third drone to enter with lengths of
spare pipe and pump components. As it came in, Marko slid out and into the main engine room of Crystal. With his secure inter-unit comms system, he sent a call to Glint hoping that he had spread a few of his micro-relays throughout the ship.
‘Marko! We’re in trouble. Very great trouble. This colonel is nasty. She killed the lieutenant and the other sergeant and they were both nice people. She actually destroyed their Soul Savers as well. Crystal is very strange; she does not like us and wants to eject us into space. She calls us created abominations.
‘Where are you?’
He flashed Glint his location as Glint continued. ‘Here are the layouts of this ship. We’re being very well behaved, Marko. The evil woman crushed my tail, snapped Flint’s legs and broke Nail’s neck. We are OK, of course, but we wonder how she could do such things. She is not human, Marko. She wants to dismantle Stephine. She says that she is not human either and is an enemy of humankind. I am afraid, Marko. Be very careful, Father.’
Oh, shit, he thought. Not human. Great! He activated the advanced ICE bioware that Stephine had concocted for them. All it did was make him feel normal, but that was better than feeling below par from the virus. He looked around the engine room to find something suitable for a ‘failure’, so the pumps that fed the damaged fuel pipes came in for a little treatment. A drone arrived a few moments later and he encouraged that to fail also by spraying it with fuel and then igniting it. All the fire suppressants came online so he backed a few of them up and encouraged a few more pump failures. He worked long and constructively, creating a cascade of failures until, finally, the colonel herself arrived in an armoured suit to find out what was happening.
Marko did not believe in giving vermin any chances. He deployed the molecular chain-linked diamond blades down his forearms which folded themselves up out of the suit and extended them for their full length past his hands. As she walked past him in the haze, he reached out and sliced her head off. Immediately he saw that Glint was right; she was not human. She was a hybrid human-urchin. The body calmly turned and advanced on him, trying to grab him. As each piece presented itself, he chopped it off while his engineer’s mind tried to fathom how — without a head — it knew where he was. The whole front of the suit opened, revealing numerous tentacle-like structures which continued to reach towards him.
As his mind went into overdrive and searched for options as to how to deal with this thing that was becoming more like a hydra than a human, he activated the suit’s lasers, destroying the middle of its torso. He then fired two micromissiles into the tops of its thighs. It finally fell to the floor with various parts seeming to act independently, thrashing towards him until he realised that he was running out of time, with not one part but dozens trying to attach themselves to him.
Quickly looking up, he identified the main fuel feeds overhead, locating the oxygen lines and severing them with one of his blade arms. As the entire engine room filled with pressurised oxygen, all the parts of the alien stopped moving, no longer able to attack or attempt to reassemble. He carefully stepped over the parts to seize the alien colonel’s head sealed inside its helmet.
He looked around, found a crynogenics container and dropped the head in, its lips still moving and eyes glaring at him. He flooded it with liquid hydrogen and sealed it shut. Carrying the container and sealing the engine room door after him, he moved down the main corridor towards the bridge, until a Games Board monitor challenged him. Without waiting for an answer, the monitor deployed a small rotary cannon which looked exactly like the one that Jan had designed for Basalt’s crew months before.
Without thinking, Marko lasered the caseless ammunition magazine of the weapon which then detonated severing the monitor’s weapon arm and destroying most of its chest. As it slumped against the wall, another monitor rushed up behind him. The suit’s proximity and other warnings went off, showing Marko that lasers were being powered up. He reacted to eliminate the threat, launching tiny short-range missiles which, when they struck the monitor, showered its electronics with a wave of focused neutron beams and destroyed them. The smoking monitor promptly crashed to the floor. It reached up with its hand and opened up the faceplate.
‘You are not to interfere, Chrysanthemum crew member,’ the prone monitor instructed. ‘This is not within your jurisdiction. This is Games Board business. Leave now and nothing more will be said.’
Marko brought up the exterior suit controls in his head and activated the external speakers. ‘Why would you think that I am the Hauler ship crew member?’
‘It is logical,’ the damaged human-machine hybrid replied. ‘The Basalt crew have been incapacitated as planned.’
Marko suddenly felt very old, terribly tired and a little despondent. ‘Really? Maybe you are wrong. I shall deal with you later.’
Marko left the motionless monitor and went to find the Crystal AI housing. It screeched abuse at him as he brutalised it, tearing its casing apart. He smiled grimly, noting that the Gjomvik manufactured components were much easier to break than the biologically grown ones on Basalt, which had originally been created by the Haulers. After lifting out the primary brain segments, he extended sensor and investigation probes from the ends of his artificial fingers, pushing them into the web of electronic and biological parts and demanded the AI tell him where its remote parts were. As soon as the answers started to register with the internal map of the ship, he locked down all the doors, then systematically dismantled the units, isolating each part of Crystal. When he finally identified her core nodes he activated a small unit — Fritz had taken many months to perfect it — which took control of any computer accessed data blocks. Finally satisfied that the AI was no longer a threat he went looking for the ACEs.
*
He was cross, tired, full of a virus and generally not paying complete attention when he passed a wrecked cabin door. A black-suited figure hurtled out, knocking him down. He rolled against the wall and flipped over onto his back when whatever it was hit him very hard in the throat. The thought flashed through Marko’s head that had he been wearing a standard suit he would have been out of the fight, then and there. As it was, the iron fist of whatever it was knocked the wind out of him as it punched him in the stomach. Marko was grateful that Veg, Harry and Jan had not been nice instructors. This sort of serious rough and tumble was bearable; only just, but still bearable.
He allowed himself to sag and as the thing came in again to have another go he flashed open the full blade past his left elbow. The block was not so much of a block, but rather allowed the black suit to simply chop off its own arm, which bounced off its chest and rolled across the corridor. As Marko’s opponent sprang backwards, with blood spraying out from the stump, he brought the other blade into play, trying to thrust it up between its legs. But his opponent was quick and leapt up, hitting the wall on the other side of the corridor.
A weapon was deployed from the right flank of the black suit, which Marko immediately responded to with two microneutron missiles, knocking the black suit down hard as its electronics and weapon controls were fried by the energy pulse from the impacting missiles. He brought the pulse laser up then blew the weapon off the side of the black suit as it raised its remaining hand and signalled a halt. The suit sealed off the severed stump and the figure stopped bleeding all over the wall. Marko waited as he could not see any other weapons on the suit and besides, the little pulse laser that he had trained on its head was just plain nasty in its capabilities and he demonstrated this by slicing the soles off his opponent’s boots just to get its attention. The figure slowly touched a seal and the faceplate opened to show an ashen-faced Colonel White.
‘Who are you and why are you on my ship?’ the colonel demanded.
He brought up the menus in his display and activated the external speakers of the suit after deliberately changing the timbre of his voice and adding an old-world Italian accent for good measure.
‘It does not matter who I am, Colonel. I am considerably more interested in you and t
his ship. Strip out of your suit. I know its type. Then lie down on the floor, extend your arms, um sorry, your arm, and your legs to their fullest extension.’
The suit peeled off her, leaving her naked. As soon as she was down, he picked up her severed arm and allowed his suit to take a blood and tissue sample. After a few moments it reported that she was one hundred per cent human and not carrying any immediately dangerous pathogens. However, it did identify alien proteins and unidentified material in her nervous system.
‘Get up and take me to the Basalt ACEs,’ Marko ordered.
‘I bet you are a member of Chrysanthemum’s crew. You have no jurisdiction here and you should leave immediately.’
‘Really!’ Marko barked out. ‘Try this for an indication of my interest in you.’
As she stood up, he leant across and injected a rather unpleasant drug into her from a tough needle built into the end of his left index finger. Her face went bright red and she started to vomit after a few seconds. He felt a twinge of guilt because he knew there was nothing more debilitating than uncontrollable vomiting, but immediately swept empathy aside, reminding himself that he really did not know what he was dealing with. The colonel proceeded to curse him between heaving and staggering ahead. That little tool had been one of Jan’s more interesting contributions to the suit, although there were a number of others as well, all medical, most good, some deeply unpleasant.
A small reception of defence drones waited for them outside the medical suite, but as Marko had fervently hoped they did not react to him. Technology, you have to love it, he mused; remove the communications, and then the ability to self-administrate, and it is stuffed.
Colonel White was leaning against the wall and weakly said, ‘I demand to know who you are.’
Marko shrugged. ‘You’re not in a fit state to demand anything, Colonel. If you do not cooperate, I’ll make it worse for you. I shall leave that to your imagination. Open the door.’
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