by Andrew Beery
Two of her metallic spider-like robotic attackers raced around the corner and began to close. Cat decided the best defense was a more aggressive offense. She spun and faced her pursuers. Two more energy beams struck her. She gave her opponents points for persistence. Unfortunately, their attack spelled the end of her uniform but not her sense of modesty.
She placed a hand on the wall beside her and instructed nanites to quickly harvest the metal they encountered. In almost no time a silver sheen began to expand across her now bare chest and shoulders. The metallic second skin enveloped her completely. This nanite-infused, ultra-flexible metal covering was able to deploy an order-of-magnitude more shield emitters then her subdural nanites had been able to. The result was she was now virtually impervious to most hand-held weapons. She had a feeling she would need that advantage in the coming moments. One of the spider robots was carrying a much larger weapon.
She send instructions via her quantum-entangled communication link to the ship’s AI, Yorky. In three minutes she needed the Yorktown’s defenders to mount the major counteroffensive they had been carefully setting up. She was going to divert the invaders attention with an assault of her own. Hopefully that would clear the way for the special surprise Ben was preparing for their visitors.
***
Commander AG Stone blinked at the sudden bright light shining in his eyes. The light belonged to a med-tech that he recognized from the Yorktown.
Damn, he thought. He had been hoping Janice Pulaski would be the doctor on duty when the bio-generation chambers came online. Doctor Pulaski was assigned to Marine City but she had accepted a TDY assignment on the Yorktown when Cat had set out on her former flagship to negotiate a working agreement with the Talus IV pirate syndicate and their leader Sharn Dragos.
The light flashed in his other eye. Why did medical folks always think that blinding a man was a good idea?
“Enough with the bright lights already,” AG grumbled while waving a hand in front of the light.
The female med-tech smiled. It was a pretty smile which AG found much more engaging than the flashlight.
“Well I’d say he’s ready for action Commander First,” the woman said by way of answer.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Ben said as he offered AG a helping hand up. “I suspect you will be busy decanting Marines for the next several hours so I’ll get this one out of your way.”
“Thank you, sir. The new enhanced bio-generators are an order of magnitude faster than the originals we got from the Ashtoreths. We’ve got nineteen more men and women decanting now and should have the second batch decanted and on their feet in the next twenty minutes or so.”
Ben whistled. “That is an improvement. I don’t suppose they’ve figured them out enough to handle Human-D’lralu hybrids yet?”
The young woman sighed. “Sadly, no sir. Your mind is already safely buffered and being updated but the bio-generation system was never designed to handle cybernetics. I’m afraid you would have to choose to become fully D’lralu and lose your human engrams or…”
“…fully synthetic and lose my remaining organic components,” Ben finished. “I suppose I’ll just have to make an effort not to be killed.”
“That would be best Sir,” the young woman responded with a wink.
AG pulled the last of his uniform on as the other two were speaking. The Yorktown’s AI had been good enough to replicate a set of Marine BDUs complete with name tags, rank insignia and a mark-six plasma pointer. The weapon was not AG’s first choice of hand guns but he would rectify that situation with a quick visit to the ship’s armory.
***
Cat swung a three-hundred-pound robotic tentacle as if it were a child’s plastic baseball bat. Behind her were the dismembered remains of three of the robotic invaders. The tentacle in her hands had come off of the last of these. The recipient of her current attention was a fourth attacker. This was the one that held the large weapon she had spotted earlier.
It had already taken one shot. The powerful energy beam had shattered Cat’s right leg. Fortunately, her medical nanites blocked the pain centers and her newly acquired metallic second-skin acted as a ready-made splint and exoskeleton. It hampered her mobility but it did not stop her.
Cat was guessing that the new weapon had a limited duty cycle and needed time to regenerate between discharges. Had that not been the case the current battle might be taking a vastly different direction.
By her count there were still twenty-five or six of these mechanical monstrosities in the corridor with her. She could not hope to defeat all of them… and that was assuming more were not about to come through the ring gate.
As if on cue the gate which was now behind her pulsed a violet red and a series dark figures began to emerge. Cat knew immediately that these new adversaries were a different sort of threat. They were much smaller, man-shaped, and came in firing.
“Gentlemen, some help would be appreciated,” Cat said through her quantum entangled link to the assault team Ben was assembling.
“We are ready to blow the exterior hatch now Admiral. I’d hold your breath and hold on to something. We have some friends from Marine City that have dropped by to lend a hand. They joined us via the pickle jars.”
“Understood,” Cat answered. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Tell AG I look forward to seeing what his Marines can do against giant robotic spiders.”
“I have it on good authority Ma’am that Marines don’t like spiders,” Ben chuckled. “Blowing the hatch now.”
A fraction of a second later the entire corridor rumbled as a small explosion rocked the ship. At about the same time there was a tremendous rush of air racing through the corridor as the hole formed by the deliberate destruction of an exterior service hatch caused the atmosphere in the corridor to be expelled into the vacuum of space.
Normally the rush of air would have tapered off after the atmospheric pressure of interior of the corridor reach equilibrium with the void of space… such was not the case this time. Instead the temperature of the air increased to some forty degrees Celsius and the flow remained steady at something greatly exceeding normal hurricane forces. Vast amounts of reddish dust mixed with the onrushing torrent and it became difficult to see.
A normal human would have had no chance and in point of fact the newest invaders where quickly flushed out into space.
Cat knew that Commander Stone and members of his Infinity Brigade were tethered outside the breach… waiting for the flow to stop so they could enter the fray. Unfortunately, what no one had anticipated was the ring gate. It was essentially a portal to the surface of another world and was functioning as a drain might in a sink… and if that sink were allowed to drain completely a world would die.
She moved slowly towards the portal. The onrush of air escaping into space made movement almost impossible. There simply was not enough traction on the floor to make forward progress. Cat had to use her Heshe-enhanced strength to drive her hands physically into the soft metal of the floor and pull herself along inch by painful inch.
After several minutes, she finally made her way to the ring gate. It was nearing an overload based on the cherry red glow of the gate mechanism. Cat had no idea what the effect on the Yorktown would be if the gate were to suddenly fail but she had a feeling it would not be good.
After a quick examination Cat realized that there were no obvious control surfaces on this side of the gate. That limited her options. Whatever mechanism operated the gate… it must be located on the other side of the portal. This meant Cat had only one choice… and it was not a good one. Reluctantly she pulled herself through the gate… If hell had a home this would be it.
***
Ben watched the optical feed from the deck just below the one he was standing on. The two scenes could not have been more dissimilar. He was surrounded by twenty armed Marines who were absolutely still… like tightly wound springs ready to explode at the slightest provocation.
The scene below him, on the
other hand, was utter chaos. A rusty red serpentine dust cloud snaked out of the still-open ring gate and blasted through the hole the primary marine assault team had blown in the ship’s hull.
The gale-force winds meant the Marines wearing Stark suits who were standing, only by virtue of their highly effective magnetic boots, on the exterior skin of the Yorktown were unable to enter the ship by the hole they had created. To make matters worse, Ben could see the Admiral making her way slowly towards the ring gate. It seemed she was intent on closing the gate. She needed help and she needed it now.
“Second team stand by service hatch B4. Yorky… erect a containment field in a two-meter circle around my position. Prepare to dissolve the deck plating between decks B3 and C3.”
A moment later Yorky replied. “Construction nanites are in position to create a temporary portal to deck C3. There will be an explosive decompression when the portal opens. Be prepared for the loss of atmospheric pressure.”
Ben grinned. His cybernetic body was uniquely suited for operation in a vacuum. His organic components were fully encapsulated in a metal sheath and supplied with O2 from internal reserves that could sustain him for days.
“Open up my door Yorky. Let’s do this thing!” Ben yelled as he crouched down.
Immediately, the floor beneath his feet dissolved. He felt himself sucked down into chaos. The flow of air was so intense he felt himself pulled towards the most of the way to the jagged hole his compatriots had blown in the exterior hull of the ship.
Finally his hand was able to find a grip and he began to pull himself hand over hand towards the ring gate. The dust was so thick that he was unable to actually see his destination. He just knew that if he was heading into the wind he would eventually reach Cat.
As strong as she was due to her Heshe enhancements, Ben’s cybernetics were far stronger. Before long he reached the gate. Cat was nowhere to be found.
“Yorky, do you have a reading on the Admiral?”
“Affirmative Commander. Her vital signs are within normal ranges but she is no longer on the Yorktown.”
“Do you have a position on her?”
“I do not. Her current location is indeterminate until such a time as she can provide a view of her local star field.”
“Patch me through to her encounter unit.”
A moment later Ben heard what sounded like the worst hurricane on record on any planet anywhere.
“Admiral, are you OK? Do you need assistance?”
“I’M TRYING… SHUT… THE GATE!” Cat shouted.
“Admiral, I would highly recommend against that. You would be on the wrong side of it and we have no idea where you are right now.”
“… SAVE…”
“Admiral, I’m not hearing you over the background noise.”
“PLANET… HELP”
Ben made a split-second decision that would change the very nature of his existence. His friend was in danger and if there was one thing he had learned over the years he had known Cat Kimbridge, it was that some causes and friendships were worth sacrificing for. Cat needed his help and help he would.
“Yorky, I’m following the Admiral through the port…,” Ben began. Sadly, it was a statement he would never finish. The end, when it came was quick.
As he entered the shimmering field that was the hyperfield ring gate; it pulsed and went inactive. The rush of air through the corridor ceased as the pressure in the breached corridor fell to zero. The lack of atmosphere to conduct sound explained why the lower half of Ben’s severed body made no noise as it collapsed to the deck.
In the process of falling, the now fully compromised metal life-support compartment that housed the organic components of Commander Ben First’s mind spilled its contents on the deck of the GCP Yorktown. The cybernetic entity that had been Cat Kimbridge’s friend for more years than either of them would have cared to admit… was well and truly dead.
Chapter 6: Private Little War…
Cat continued to crawl hand-over-hand towards the control panel. The rough and violent swirling of air, filled with a choking reddish grit made both breathing and movement difficult but not impossible. Fortunately, now that she was on the planet-side of the ring-gate things were marginally easier.
If there had been somebody in the room; they had long since fled or, more likely, been sucked out the portal and ultimately into the vacuum of space. The equipment they left behind confirmed a growing suspicion running thru Cat’s mind. It was definitely human technology… but a human technology she had never seen realized in anything beyond computer simulations.
As she reached what appeared to be a control panel she quickly scanned her eyes over it. On one corner, exactly where she would have put it… there was a red, emergency shut-down button. She pressed it. The rush of air stopped. The sound of silence was almost more deafening then the torrent of wind that had just ceased.
Her eyes scanned the far wall where the door to the chamber must have once been. The entire frame was missing and the wall was a jagged mess of twisted metal and stone.
The floor on the other side of the shattered door frame was strewn with the same reddish dirt that had been airborne just a few moments ago. A glass wall to the outside was shattered and was apparently the source of the soil that had been pulled through the ring-gate.
As Cat continued her visual sweep of the room her eyes ultimately came back to the ring-gate itself. What she saw horrified her.
On the ground was the crushed upper portion of the cybernetic body of her friend and executive officer, Ben First. She had saved a world by closing the ring-gate but in the process, she had inadvertently killed her friend. Her heart felt as if a fist were clenched around it.
The floor near the severed shoulder and head was wet with the blue-green fluid that circulated through the organic components of Ben’s body. Cat knew, intellectually, that that meant that the portion of Ben’s mind that was his D’Iralu brain was dead. That meant that Ben himself was dead… only unlike the Marines in the Infinity Brigade… there would be no coming back from this death. The bio-generators had never been programmed to reproduce something as unique her cybernetic executive officer.
Cat was just beginning to process what this might mean for her long-time friend when her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of energy weapons being discharged.
She reluctantly pushed the thoughts of her lost friend into a deep and dark hole in her mind. She didn’t want to, but she had responsibilities that extended beyond her friend… and as much as it hurt her… she had to get about the business of seeing to the safety of those still alive.
As a first step, she began to send a continuous telemetry feed to the Yorktown via her quantum entangled communication node. Hopefully they would be able eventually to determine her location.
At the same time, she extended her internal encounter unit’s sensors. The Heshe technology allowed her to essentially see through walls. A quarter of a kilometer away, in an open area between buildings, she spotted several moving heat signatures. These were being pursued by a larger number of smaller heat signatures. This confirmed what Cat had long suspected. They had stumbled into somebody else’s private little war.
Cat looked at her dead friend one last time and then made her way out of the room. She needed answers and those answers were out there… not in here.
***
Commander AG Stone stood by the now defunct ring-gate. The gory mess that had been Commander First had been removed respectfully by two of his men. The Admiral’s Executive Officer had not been a Marine but AG would have gladly had the cyborg at his side in any fight. He had been as good a man, synthetic or otherwise, as he had ever had the privilege to know.
Master Gunny JJ Hammond stepped up to his commanding officer and friend. He put a hand on the outside of the dead ring.
“We’ll get her back AG. Don’t’n ya be werring about that.”
AG shook his head. He wasn’t worried about Cat. If he had learned anything about her�
� she could take care of herself. No, he was more concerned about their foe. They had made short work of the robotic spiders once the radio link that had been routed through the hyperfield gate was shut down. Individually, the robots had very crude programming and were easy to defeat.
It had taken his men barely ten minutes to complete mop-up operations once the gate was closed. In the process, they captured several humans.
At first the captives refused to speak and did not respond to questions. They held themselves as if they were resigned to whatever fate the Marines had for them. The nature of their silence was not the only strange thing about them. The three men and one woman were dressed in uniforms that defied explanation.
They reminded AG of full-body halters used for walking a dog. They were made of a metallic fabric weave and had, what appeared to be, alien communication and translation systems built into wiring harnesses attached to their backs. It did not look like the control interfaces were designed for humans… in point of fact, it would have been impossible for any of the captives to reach the control surfaces on the devices they were wearing.
The Marines that captured them quickly removed the devices lest they somehow be used to facilitate an escape attempt. The men reacted indifferently to this activity but the woman began to fight and scream as the Marines attempted to remove the device from her back.
Once it was removed, the woman seemed bewildered. It was then that the first words were spoken.
“How be tit dat ya can touch the ambuls and not be punished?” The woman said.
AG had arrived just in time to hear the question.
He pointed towards the devices which now rested on a table in the room they were holding the captives.
“You call these things ‘ambuls’… what are they?” AG asked.
“If ya not be know’n, ya best hope ya never learn,” the bigger of the three male captives spat. “Dim’s bad news. Been wearing mine fer long about sixteen years… ever since the Nesters took me and me kin.”