‘I have to admit to being a little curious.’
‘We think it might have been to do with the signal we picked up from the Liberator,’ Hannes said. ‘At first we couldn’t pin it down, it seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once—but that was because the signal was talking to the main computer system, feeding it instructions.’
Vila still didn’t understand, in fact Hannes’s explanation just left him more confused. ‘How does a computer reanimate dead bodies?’
The communications officer stopped what he was doing and gave Vila his full attention. ‘They’re not dead bodies—well, yes they are, but only about 50 percent dead bodies, the other 50 percent is cybernetic implant. I’m guessing that the signal told the computer to activate a predetermined programme that had been wired into the subroutines of the implants.’ He suddenly noticed that everyone was watching him. He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I guess that’s what I’d do if I was some crazy scientist orbiting the planet in a big alien spaceship.’
Brinn was the first to break the silence. ‘So, we make for the lifts, yes?’
Blake shook his head. ‘I need you to take me to where they’re holding Cally first, I’m not leaving her behind. If we go, then we’re all going together.’
‘In that case we’ll need to double back on ourselves,’ Brinn said. ‘We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that we don’t bump into any Archangels on the way.’
‘You say the most reassuring things,’ Vila said, glaring at the Federation officer.
*
Switching off the breakers had been a gamble, but it had worked. At first the engines had refused to fire as Avon threw everything into reverse and hoped for the best. He felt the Liberator begin to shudder violently beneath him as the ship started to spin wildly off course.
Thankfully, at the last minute, the retros had fired.
Only the aft jets to begin with, but it was enough to halt the ship’s spin. Then they had all burst into sudden life, igniting in sequence along the length of the ship, and the nose started to lift.
The ship lurched again and for a brief moment the gravity field shifted, pinning Avon in his seat, as he pulled back hard on the flight controls, fighting to keep the nose above the skin of the planet’s atmosphere.
A power warning alarm blared on his console prompting Avon to reach forward and flip the dampers back on. He did it slowly, calmly, just as Jenna had instructed, waiting for each of the lights to blink to green before moving on to the next switch. A power surge at this point would overload the circuits and blow the whole array.
So Avon took his time. Then, as soon as he was finished, he sat back and waited.
Somehow the Liberator had managed to claw its way out of the planet’s atmosphere and back into stationary orbit with its hull intact and its crew still, relatively, in one piece. After a while the shuddering began to subside and Avon waited for the auto systems to come back online before he felt confident enough to switch off manual control and leave the pilot module.
eHe quickly unbuckled the webbing from Jenna’s seat and carried her carefully down to the medical unit.
As soon as he had finished patching her up, Avon returned to the flight deck to attend to Kodyn Tam. It was a waste of medical supplies really, as Kodyn was going to die soon anyway. There wasn’t anything that Avon could do about it. He’d lost too much blood and the wound in his chest had obviously become infected. All Avon could do now was make him comfortable.
He carried Kodyn over to the seating area and laid him down as gently as he could, then he tore open what was left of the man’s shirt and began to clean the wound.
Kodyn had been fading in and out of consciousness for a while and seemed barely aware of his surroundings. Avon took the opportunity to inspect the makeshift power unit he’d stuck into his chest.
The unit had been torn out of a service robot, there was no doubt about that. It was one of the early Beta coils that got scorching hot after prolonged use. Avon was surprised that they were still in use. Having one jammed in his chest like that must have been excruciating. No wonder he had been driven half mad. Avon could imagine all too clearly the flesh around the wound beginning to fry, as the unit slowly got hotter and hotter inside him.
Why would he do this to himself? What was it all for? He’d mentioned a girl—Tala—said she was down there in the facility where the others were, said he couldn’t let her live that way.
Avon turned and headed for the nearest communication console, flipped on the power and pressed transmit. ‘Blake, this is Liberator, come in.’ He waited ten seconds then tried again. ‘Blake, this is Avon, respond please.’ There was still no reply so he powered down the unit.
Kodyn was beginning to return to consciousness again and Avon took the opportunity to question him.
‘Kodyn Tam, can you hear me?’
His eyes fluttered open and looked at Avon, then he slowly nodded his head.
‘Why, Tam? Why did you do it?’
‘Daughter…’
‘But if she’s still down there, still alive, Blake could bring her back for you.’
Kodyn shook his head, then began to cough, coating his lips with spittle. Avon noticed that the spittle was very, very red.
‘Not Tala anymore. Made me turn her into a monster. My fault. Have to let her rest in peace.’
‘What was the transmission for, Tam? Why did you reactivate the device in your chest?’
‘To start the final programme.’
‘Final programme? What final programme?’
‘It’s in the cybernetic implants. I put it in every one of those so-called “angels”. No-one knew.’
‘What is the final programme, Tam?’
‘Two instructions. One, kill everyone involved in Archangel. Two, destroy everything relating to Archangel.’
‘So you’ve initiated the final programme? Is Blake in danger?’
Kodyn nodded slowly.
‘Yes.’
‘Yes? Which one is the “yes” for? Which of the two questions are you answering, Tam?’
‘Both.’
‘But Blake is your friend.’
Kodyn smiled bitterly.
‘He promised me he would help, but look at what happened. My wife dead, both of my children lost to me. Blake is no friend of mine.’ Kodyn’s eyes began to close again and Avon decided let him rest.
*
Blake froze in the doorway of the interrogation room and stared down the barrel of a laser pistol.
Servalan must have grabbed the weapon the moment that he had broken down the door, pointing it in his direction. He waited for her to pull the trigger (after all hadn’t she been waiting for an opportunity like this?) but so far she seemed content to just point the weapon at him.
He tried to explain about the Archangels, about the trallion energy and the Liberator’s imminent explosion and the need to get out of the facility as fast as they could, but Servalan just smiled.
‘You’re not going anywhere, Blake,’ she told him. ‘In fact, none of us are. I’m well aware of what’s been happened out there, we’ve had the surveillance cameras up and running for a while now. We’re quite safe from the explosion down here, I assure you. And we have enough food and oxygen to last us for several years, if the need arose. As for the implants, well, they won’t be able to take the load for much longer—they’ll burn themselves out soon enough. All we have to do is sit down here and wait.’
Brinn pushed his way past Blake and offered Servalan a half-hearted salute. ‘With all due respect, Supreme Commander, we can’t be certain of that. It’s true that the walls of this facility have been reinforced with ten metre thick bars of polyherculanium, but that might not be enough. Not with a potential impact of this size. And certainly not when trallion energy is involved.
The muzzle tracked quickly across from Blake to Brinn, then Servalan pulled the trigger, shooting the officer where he stood. As soon as she was sure that he was dead, she pointed th
e gun back at Blake.
‘Would anyone else care to argue with me?’ Her question was met with silence. ‘No? Then I’ll assume that we’re all agreed on the subject. Now, I want you to come inside and shut the door.’
Cally leapt from her chair, knocking the gun from Servalan’s hand. Blake darted quickly forward and scooped it up off the floor.
‘Brinn was a good man and our best hope of getting out of here alive!’ Blake aimed the gun at Servalan. ‘You may have just condemned us all by killing him. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just shoot you right here and now.’
‘You forget, I know you too well, Blake. We’re two sides of the same coin.’ She smiled sweetly at the rebel leader. ‘You won’t kill me, you’re far too…civilized.’
Cally strode across the room and stood directly in front of Servalan, her face just inches away from the Supreme Commander’s. ‘Then give me the gun, Blake. I’m not quite as civilized as you. In fact, where Supreme Commander Servalan’s concerned, I have a tendency to be positively uncultured.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They made it to the lifts safely enough, although deep down they all knew that would be the easy part.
The Archangels had been programmed by Kodyn to destroy anyone in the facility, that much was clear, possibly even the facility itself, and Blake could tell that he wasn’t going to be able to reason with them.
Blake thought about the horrors the cyberneticist must have seen and, worse still, been involved in—all against his will, of that Blake had no doubt. The Kodyn Tam he’d known had been a good and decent man who would have hated participating in these experiments.
The youngest girl, the one that had been the first to be resurrected by the computer, had reminded Blake of Kodyn’s own daughters, Katri and Tala. They had been so young and vulnerable when Blake had seen them last, the night he had sent them out of the Dome. He wondered where they were now and if they were safe.
The ride up to ground level took a few minutes and, when the doors shushed open, everyone was expecting to find the Archangels waiting for them. What they hadn’t expected was for the corridor to be totally deserted.
Blake and the communications officer, Hannes, went first, scouting along the corridor for several yards before signalling for the others to follow. One by one they exited the lift and trotted down the corridor towards Blake and Hannes’s position.
There were a handful of security doors between them and the main entrance, which Servalan had assured them would all be open, although what would be beyond that was anyone’s guess.
‘And if we find the main entrance is open, what then?’ asked Servalan. ‘Am I supposed to be grateful, say “thank you, Blake”, and just let all of you go?’
The idea that Servalan would be grateful to anyone other than herself made Blake smile.
‘I didn’t think for a moment that you would. And I’m sure we’ll have a very enjoyable conversation about it later. In the meantime, let’s just concentrate on getting out of here alive.’
The main entrance wasn’t too far down the corridor, but they took it in stages, with Blake and Hannes continually scouting ahead while Cally and the remaining trooper, Stak, guarded the rear: one rebel and one Federation trooper to each group, that was the way Blake preferred it.
What they found when they eventually got there came as no real surprise. The doorway had been barricaded shut using anything that the Archangels could get their hands on—fuel canisters, computer consoles, tables. They’d even stripped the insulation panels off the walls and hammered them into the doorframe.
They upended one of the metal tables and used it as a makeshift shield while they took it in turns to drag the items away from the door. Servalan, Vila and Gemill went first, while the rest of the group spread out behind the table to cover the corridor with their laser rifles.
Blake hoped that if the Archangels were to attack now they’d be ready for them. From here they had pretty much everywhere covered. Cally and Stak were covering the left hand corridor, while Blake and Hannes pointed their guns back the way they had come.
Behind them, the barricade-clearing was slow going. The tables weren’t really much of a problem but the canisters were full of liquid and very heavy, while the insulation panels had been wedged in so tight it felt like they’d been riveted in place.
It didn’t take long for Vila to give up. He fell back against the wall, panting with exhaustion, his hand red and sore from tugging at the sharp, angular corners of the metal panels.
‘It’s no good, Blake, they just won’t budge,’ Vila informed him. ‘It’s like getting Avon to admit that he’s wrong—practically impossible.’
In response Blake backed slowly away from the table, all the time keeping his eye on the corridor, looking for the slightest sign of movement. When he’d reached Vila he handed him the gun. ‘Take this and keep an eye on the corridor.’
As Vila did as he was told, Blake called over to the communications officer. ‘Give your gun to Gemill, Hannes. Then come and help me remove this panelling.’
‘Good idea,’ said Servalan. ‘I could do with a break from this myself.’
But Blake shook his head. ‘Not you, I’m afraid, Supreme Commander. I want you where I can see you.’
*
Gemill’s death wasn’t exactly Vila’s fault, but if he’d been paying attention a little more then the doctor would probably have made it out of there alive.
When the ambush came, it was from a direction they hadn’t considered and, rather foolishly, they had left themselves wide open to it. They knew an attack was going to come, they weren’t that foolish, they simply believed that they had all the directions that the Archangels could get at them covered. If Brinn had still been alive he would have known that it could have been a possible hiding place. He would have been able to warn them, advised Blake to have someone watching the area just in case.
The Archangels had been working their way through the crawlspaces above the corridor and, when they reached their prey, began dropping down on to the group from above. The crawlspaces were not the easiest of places to hide—they were only about three quarters of a metre at their widest points, which was usually at the junctions—but they ran the length of the entire upper level and could be accessed from various points along the corridor. They were mainly used by the service robots to access the outer skin of the facility and make essential repairs. No-one really knew that they were there, unless they had seen the plans—like Brinn.
Vila was busy checking the powerpack on his gun when Gemill screamed behind him. He spun around to find that an Archangel had Gemill by the throat, lifting him bodily off the ground and, before anyone could stop it, had pushed the first two fingers of its free hand into Gemill’s eyes.
Off to his left, Vila could hear Blake telling him to use the gun and he glanced down at his hands as if to double-check that he was still holding the weapon. He was.
He lifted the laser gun and aimed it at the dead creature’s head, then pulled the trigger. The blast knocked the thing backwards and sent it crashing against the far wall, but it refused to stay down; the moment it hit the floor the creature was struggling to pull itself to its feet again, its featureless white eyes now fixed on Cally.
‘Vila, Cally, up there!’
They looked up in time to see another of the reanimated creatures climbing out of the crawlspace, hitting the floor with all the grace and dexterity of a falling boulder. Vila aimed again, this time catching the creature in the forehead, its head exploding in a shower of blood and bone that sprayed the trooper behind, causing Vila to yelp in surprise and almost drop his gun.
‘This is moving. Cally come and give us a hand,’ Blake shouted.
The panelling was starting to move now and if they could prise this one section far enough away from the door they would have a narrow gap to slip out of.
The Archangels were trying to wriggle through the gap in the ceiling and Servalan ran across to where Gemill’s
body lay and picked up the dead man’s gun.
The sound of gunfire echoed along the corridor as Blake, Cally and Hannes pulled at the panelling as hard as they could. Little by little, it started to slide away from the door until there was space enough for Hannes to squeeze through and reach for the entrypad on the wall behind the barricade. His fingers wiggled in the air just centimetres away from the keys, and he took a deep breath in, trying to make himself as thin as possible, but it was no good.
‘Blake, I can’t reach it. We’re going to have to pull the panel back a little further.’
Blake glanced over his shoulder. Vila, Servalan and the trooper, Stak, were keeping the creatures back and Gemill was dead. The trooper would just have to hold them back as best he could.
‘Servalan, Vila, over here quickly,’ Blake shouted.
Together, they started pulling at the panel until they were just about able to give Hannes the extra space he needed. He slithered his body further into the gap and reached out his arm once more, this time his fingertips brushed the surface of the entrypad.
It was too dark behind the panel to be able to see the numbers and letters on the keys themselves, but by finding the top left-hand corner of the entrypad’s outer shell Hannes was able to lightly trail his fingers along each of the line of keys counting off the numbers and letters as he passed over them.
The exit code was simple enough, an eight-digit mix of six numbers and two letters. The entire team had been briefed on all codes and passwords on the flight over from Space Command headquarters, over a week ago.
When the door started to clatter open and sunlight began to stream into the corridor, Hannes almost felt like crying. He crouched down and scuttled quickly under the remaining panel, then onto the planet’s surface. As soon as he was out he shouted for Blake to throw him a gun.
As the others slithered under the barricade, Hannes took up a position by the door, waiting for any Archangels to follow them. Blake appeared first, followed by Cally and Servalan, then Vila. Stak was only halfway out when the Archangel caught him around the waist and hauled him back in. Cally and Blake turned to help, but there was nothing they could do. Instead they turned and ran for the treeline.
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