Vanguard Rising: A Space Opera Adventure

by A. C. Hadfield

  “And you’re looking to draw level, is that it?”

  “Depends who that one is.” Vallan laughed again.

  The assassin fired another shot, this time striking the leg of the workbench, forcing Harlan farther back.

  — Okay, got it. Just don’t waste any time.

  Harlan’s night vision flickered on. The scene before him glowed in various values of green. The assassin’s chameleon suit didn’t show up, but the absence of it did, reversing its usefulness. A black form shifted through the green landscape, dodging behind cover, and preventing a clear shot.

  “It was you on the transport ship, wasn’t it? Disguised as the old woman,” Harlan said, trying to buy a few more seconds.

  “Ah, yes, I’m surprised it took you so long to figure that out. Always the gentleman ready to help old ladies. One day that will get you into trouble… oh, it looks like today is that day.”

  “Maybe…”

  The form shifted a few inches out of cover.

  Harlan leaned out from under the workbench and fired his Taser.

  Vallan grunted and stumbled back, the chameleon suit taking the brunt of the charge.

  Harlan scrambled forward and fired again.

  The assassin yelled and swung a foot up, catching Harlan in the jaw. The force knocked him against the workbench, but he rebounded off it and used the momentum to slam his heavy magnetic boot down.

  The boot struck against the assassin’s chest, knocking his arms back.

  Another kick slapped the weapon from his hands.

  Harlan pressed the Taser to Vallan’s head and was about to pull the trigger when the lights came on and the door swung open.

  “Hold it,” a deep voice boomed out. “Luna security. Drop the weapon.”

  — Finally, the cavalry has arrived. Oh, while you were hiding like a baby, I hacked the communications relay to send a message to Luna’s security. You’re welcome.

  Harlan dropped his weapon, held his arms up, noticing that Vallan had a monofilament blade in his left hand—Harlan would have been dead before he had even pulled the trigger. And he hadn’t even seen it.

  Half a dozen armored security abbots quickly entered the room. They lifted Harlan up and pulled him aside. He explained the situation and showed the security officer the warrant for Vallan’s arrest along with his silicon runner identification.

  Three of the security abbots held Vallan as they read him his rights. They were about to arrest him when Harlan exerted his authority and jurisdiction. The abbots handed Vallan over to Harlan after they had removed any weapons from his person.

  “Thanks, guys,” Harlan said. “You got here just in time.”

  Vallan remained silent.

  — Well, are you going to take off his mask, or what? I’m dying to know what this scumbag looks like, Milo said, echoing Harlan’s own curiosity.

  For years Vallan had gone about his business without anyone directly identifying him, which was what made him so difficult to track.

  Harlan removed the mask and gasped.

  “Leanne?”

  Vallan was his wife.

  5

  Station Nord Relay,

  Northeast Greenland

  Irena checked her watch. They’d travelled for four hours and twenty-five standard minutes through the woodland. The going had been worse than anticipated, but finally they’d arrived at Station Nord.

  The small brick facility housed a single satellite dish that beamed data to and from the Quantum Computer Array, which floated in the Lagrangian point between Earth and its moon. The building used to be a refueling depot during humankind’s first forays in colonization, but when the computers and robots got sufficiently smart, they had taken it upon themselves to re-purpose it as a central server for all their operations.

  “The station looks out of place in the dense forest,” Siegfried said.

  “The front bay is open,” Darnesh said, pointing at a steel door swinging in the breeze. “The abbots must have seen us arrive.”

  “They have names,” one of the raven-haired abbots in the back said.

  “I’m sorry,” Darnesh said. “I meant no offense.”

  “Let’s not sit around arguing about human-abbot relations,” Osho said. “The weather’s taking a bad turn. Let’s get in and prep the q-bit cores. The sooner we get them installed, the sooner we can get back to base.”

  Everyone got out of the rover. Siegfried and Darnesh took the two q-bit cores into the station. The two abbots faced out to the woodland, rifles slung over their shoulders.

  The sight made Irena shiver. She hadn’t seen the weapons until now and hadn’t thought they would need to be armed. But given that she’d noticed a shadow following them in the woods for the majority of the journey, she wasn’t unhappy to know that Osho had arranged for some security provisions.

  Still, seeing a pair of abbots with lethal weapons filled Irena with a sense of unease.

  Her father had often told her stories about the abbot uprising and the short war that had followed. Although there hadn’t been a single incident of abbot-on-human violence since then, Irena had always been nervous around them.

  “Go,” Kestro said to her, nodding toward the open bay door. “We’ll follow you in.”

  Irena hesitated for a moment, but realized they weren’t going to move until she did, presumably for her own protection. She thanked them awkwardly and headed into the station. Before she reached for the door, however, a thought occurred to her. She considered it out loud. “Where’s the other rover?”

  Osho, who was standing in the shadow of the facility, turned to face her. “That’s a very good point. Kestro, Ortsek, would you mind checking the perimeter, see if it’s parked on the other side? We really ought to assess the damage to see if we can drive it back with us.”

  The two abbots split up and proceeded to circle the station.

  “Miss Selles, if you will—we’ll need your help,” Osho added.

  Irena hurried, not wanting to annoy her superior.

  Inside, the base was in darkness. It was only ten meters square on the ground level and featured a central spiral staircase leading into the laboratory area. Panels of computer equipment and workstations lined the walls. A couple of office chairs lay strewn about as if abandoned. Two doors were visible on the back wall. One of them hung open on its hinges.

  Through the filtered helmet on the hab suit, Irena smelled the faint scent of burnt plastic. No one else mentioned it, so she put it down to her imagination.

  “Why is it so quiet in here, and why are the lights off?” Irena asked.

  “The generator’s down,” Darnesh replied as he struggled up the spiral stair with a bulky q-bit core in his arms. It weighed about twenty kilos, all dark and shiny and filled with niobium superconductors.

  Magic boxes, her father used to call them. And the problem with magic, he said, was that it didn’t exist; it was all an illusion. This was all prefaced with the unspoken notion that she was wasting her time. He, and her mother, would have rather she followed them into politics. The thought had never once appealed to her. For her, science and technology were eminently more useful. But, illusion or not, the q-bit cores were a pain to fit and cohere with the rest of the system. They’d be here for hours—longer if the generator needed repairing.

  “Dr. Siegfried,” Osho said, “attend to the power supply when you’ve found the other abbot team, would you, please? Irena, come with me through here. I would like to show you something.”

  Irena followed Osho through the open door on the ground level. The room was barely large enough for two people to stand side by side and only twice that long. On the far wall hung a holographic display. On the two other walls were paper printouts.

  Osho switched on the lights attached to the side of her helmet.

  Irena did the same, kicking herself for not realizing earlier. This whole place made her nervous and unable to think logically. She hated that feeling of not being in control.

&nbs
p; “Here’s some data from the atmospheric seeding program,” Osho said, indicating a particular long piece of paper pinned to the wall. “When we get the computers back online, I’d like you to go through these and see if the reports will help shape your models.”

  Irena took a cursory glance at the data and knew without thinking about it that it would be of no use to her. Seeding the atmosphere could only do so much; she had modeled it years ago and quickly realized they’d need other tools if they were to cool the environment enough.

  Earth had passed its no-return zone back in 2083 CE. Experts had predicted temperature rises of around four degrees. They had no idea that the catalyst would happen, sending temperatures six degrees over the threshold in just a few short years, or the increasing rise—until nuclear winter from the Last War settled across vast tracts of the planet.

  Irena had anticipated it would take at least another fifty years to implement the technology to reverse that. The Mars colonists in Bujoldia were making some interesting breakthroughs with atmospheric conditioning, but even with the abbots for the labor and the QCA to crunch the numbers, it would require significant time.

  Osho turned to face Irena, the lights shining into her face mask, glaring into her eyes. “You’ve already figured it out, haven’t you?” she said, her old eyes widening with amazement.

  Irena blushed under the scrutiny and shook her head. “I can’t say for sure; I’ll need to run the numbers properly.”

  “I can sense it in you. Your body language says it all. This is why I wanted you here. You have a gift, my girl, and you will do wonders with it. Come on, let’s help the old guys with those q-bit cores before they start complaining about what a slave driver I am.”

  Irena smiled and turned to exit the room.

  Osho went first and got five paces in front when she suddenly stopped as though she had walked into a wall. Her whole body shuddered for a moment.

  “Doctor, what is it?” Irena asked, inching forward.

  Her light beams reflected off something dark on Osho’s right shoulder.

  Dark and red.

  Blood smears.

  Osho stumbled backward. The prone, bloodied form of Siegfried collapsed in front of her. His helmet had been removed, the ragged edges of his suit coated in blood. Farther behind Siegfried, Darnesh careened down the spiral staircase, gripping his throat.

  Irena shouted and sprinted toward him, but it was too late.

  He too collapsed to the ground. She removed her glove and checked for his pulse with a shaking hand, but there was nothing.

  Osho screamed.

  Irena looked back to see the doctor pointing up to the next floor. An abbot, not Kestro or Ortsek, stepped onto the staircase, pointed a rifle at Dr. Osho and shot three times, sending her body stumbling back.

  “Run,” Osho whispered with a gurgled voice. “Save yourself.”

  Irena was caught with indecision: save Dr. Osho or follow orders.

  A bullet striking her in the hand made up her mind. She threw her arm back in reaction, her wrist terminal flying off. She made to reach for it, but another shot blasted out.

  As pain pulsed through her body from the wound, she sprinted as fast as she could out of the building and into the open. “Kestro, Ortsek, do you hear me?” Her shouted words came between panicked breaths.

  No reply.

  Another shot came from inside, presumably to finish off Dr. Osho.

  Irena spun around and pushed the doors closed before taking off around the building to find the other two abbots. She did find them—ripped to pieces and lying in a heap against the damaged rover. The vehicle had been completely ruined; all the tires were slashed, and coolant was seeping out of the motor bay.

  If only they had checked first.

  Around the far side of the station, Irena found the rest of the original abbot team—all were dismembered and stacked in a pile behind the station.

  Fear and panic threatened to overwhelm her. The suit was suddenly too small, obstructing her movements, making her too hot. She pulled the helmet off and threw it to the ground, tears coursing down her cheeks, her body shaking.

  Next, she zipped it down the middle and stepped out of it. Freed of its bulk, she continued around the station until she came to the corner. She peered around it and saw the other rover.

  If she could get in, she could engage the autopilot back to the facility. She tiptoed forward, readying to sprint. The armed abbot was reflected in the rover’s glass dome. He was lying in wait, rifle trained on the vehicle. Waiting for her to walk into her death.

  She stumbled behind the brick wall, pressing her back against the cold stone. She let out a sob. She shook because of the pain in her hand. Because her friends had been brutally murdered. And because now she was alone on an abandoned, decaying Earth.

  But most of all because an abbot had gone wrong. Badly wrong.

  The sound of footsteps squelching in the mud came from around the corner. She held her breath with an effort and forced herself to find composure. Look at the data; analyze the facts; leave emotion out of it for now.

  It was the only way she’d survive. Without her terminal to call the ERP facility, or send a message to one of the stations, she was completely vulnerable and alone. Survival was now her singular responsibility.

  First things first, find a weapon. She looked around and found nothing of use.

  Okay, second option: run.

  She’d have to run into the wilderness and keep running until she could find help, even though that represented a new kind of danger. The shadows she had seen chasing them on the way to the station were clearly earthers. She faced a terrible choice: face a deranged and armed abbot or head into the woods and chance her luck with humanity’s cursed children.

  The sound of the rover’s tires being slashed and a gun being loaded made up her mind. She took a deep breath, pressed her palms against the wall, and pushed off at a sprint into the trees, fear and determination to survive flowing through her body and keeping her legs pumping.

  Behind her, twigs snapped.

  The abbot fired at her. The bullet whistled past, slammed into the trunk of a tree.

  She twisted and turned, dashing between the trunks, dodging in and out, and trying to get as much woodland between her and her attacker as possible. After a few moments, she realized the abbot was no longer firing at her. With her heart pounding and every breath burning her lungs, she stopped and chanced a look over her shoulder.

  And stifled a scream.

  The dying light of dusk barely illuminated a pack of four earthers in ragged clothes, their long hair matted with leaves and twigs. They hunched over the prone form of the rogue abbot as they ripped it limb from limb, trying to find some sustenance and looking dismayed when all they found were servos, artificial muscle, and electronics.

  One of them looked up to the sky, sniffed, and turned to face Irena.

  The stare from those mad, wild blue eyes froze her in place until the horror of what had happened hit again like a lightning strike. She turned and ran deeper into the woods, determined to find safety but only seeing more shadows shifting in the trees ahead of her, closing in.

  6

  Leanne had said nothing to Harlan during the trip to Atlas Station.

  He couldn’t believe that, after all these years, he’d found his ex-wife and that she had turned out to be the notorious killer Santos Vallan. Harlan had watched her in the cell at the back of the transport ship during the six-hour-and-thirty-five-minute standard journey.

  She’d steadfastly refused to speak to him, had refused to explain where she had been all these years, and refused to explain why she’d become a hired assassin.

  She had barely aged during the last ten years, presumably the work of cybernetics from her contacts on Galilei. Despite himself, a small part of Harlan was still attracted to her. A part of him wanted to believe this was some terrible mistake and that he wasn’t her target.

  “You have to talk to me at some p
oint,” he said.

  He crossed his legs and leaned back into the uncomfortable transport ship seat.

  Three other cells in the ship contained petty thieves and small-time criminals, none of whom had visitors, leaving Harlan the only one there.

  Leanne sat on her bunk and brought her knees to her chest. Her bright green eyes stared at Harlan with a mix of confusion, hatred, and what he thought was amusement.

  “You think this is some kind of game?” Harlan asked. “It isn’t. This is your life on the line. You’ll be executed for your crimes. And there’s nothing I can do to help you unless you speak to me. Tell me what happened to you. Did someone put you up to this? Are you working for some kind of criminal organization? Or is this some sad fantasy you’re living out? The all-powerful assassin?”

  Leanne ran a hand through her short-cropped brunette hair and pressed her lips together, as though preparing to say something.

  Harlan leaned forward, ready for her words.

  She simply smiled and rested her back against the wall of the cell.

  — You still have your Taser, Milo said. Perhaps a little encouragement would get her talking.

  “My AI assistant believes I should torture you with my Taser to get you speaking,” Harlan said, reaching inside his biker’s jacket and removing the weapon.

  He flipped it over in his hands as though it were a child’s toy.

  “Is that what it’s really going to come to? Because if it is, then trust me, I have enough anger in me that tasering you into submission will actually be quite therapeutic.”

  Leanne rubbed her forehead, easing the tension from her face. She glared up at Harlan and approached the glass security wall. She looked down at him as though appraising him, perhaps seeing if he would actually go ahead and torture her.

  Harlan had no such intention, but knew within himself that if he did start, he probably wouldn’t be able to finish.

  Leanne had hurt him as much as anyone or anything had in his life.

  He still carried that hurt within him and used it every day. His belief was that his anger was the sole reason why he was motivated to bring justice to the solar system. It was a way for him to exorcise the injustice she’d inflicted upon him when she left with no explanation.