Provenance I - Flee The Bonds

by V J Kavanagh

  10:06 SUN 05:11:2119

  Bridge Alpha, Provenance, LEO

  Penny’s hands clamped the upper deck chrome rail, her eyes held captive by the bridge’s cinematic viewscreen and the sickening spectacle it projected. On her right stood Kacee and on her left Dee. Francois sat behind them in a console chair. She felt so alone.

  Her initial shock at seeing Steve move in a blur had been surpassed by a hollowing fear. Morton was becoming faster with each attack. He circled Steve with a predatory grin, darting from one spot to another in a streak of black.

  Her innermost thought escaped. ‘What if he loses?’

  Kacee took hold of her hand. ‘Then he would have died protecting the only thing that matters to him.’

  Penny continued to stare at the viewscreen. The word ‘died’ threatened to overwhelm her. Her voice wavered. ‘They don’t deserve him.’

  ‘They? Look at me, Penny.’

  Even in the cold blue light Kacee’s gentle smile carried warmth. ‘Steve’s not fighting for them, he’s fighting for you.’

  Morton blurred once more, and this time he made contact.

  Penny spun around. ‘Why don’t—‘

  Francois had gone.

  10:10 SUN 05:11:2119

  Maintenance Bay 04-02-17, Provenance, LEO

  Steve crashed onto his back, surprised that his ripped shoulder registered no pain. He crooked his head, just in time to feel Morton’s fist brush his ear and pound into the deck plate. With his ears ringing, he pushed Morton aside and jumped to his feet. Whatever augmentations SCITECH had given him, he doubted his body would survive a punch like that.

  Morton lunged from a crouch, his shoulder thumping into Steve’s hip plate and lifting him into the air. Steve gritted his teeth, raised his folded arm and drove his elbow into the back of Morton’s neck. The elbow protector plate shattered on impact, polymer skin split, exposing an edge of Morton’s shiny alloy vertebrae.

  The force of the blow knocked Morton to the deck. Steve landed on his feet, his body rigid in anticipation of the next onslaught. It never came.

  Morton raised himself into a crouch, his head bowed. ‘How’s the elbow?’

  Steve touched his right elbow, the swelling felt hot and squidgy, and painless. Morton’s head juddered up and down. Something was broken.

  Morton rose slowly, his head still bowed. He arched backwards until their eyes met. ‘It would appear SCITECH have been tampering with your subconscious as well. Your blow was too precise to be a fluke; you have damaged my semispinalis linkage.’

  ‘So I’ve won.’

  A smile crossed Morton tilted face. ‘I said this was a contest between two species. My species can communicate directly with the network, can you?’

  The klaxon shrilled in the cavernous bay. Particles accelerated towards the flashing red doorway and the widening gap between the airlock doors.

  Morton raised his voice over the alarm. ‘Exemplar’s can hold their breath for at least thirty minutes. Which I believe is twenty-five minutes longer than you.’

  Steve ran across to the EM suit closets attached to the inner bulkhead. He yanked open each door in turn, as he flung open the last one his head drooped. They were all empty.

  ‘Did you think I’d be so foolish as to overlook something so obvious?’ Morton’s voice swirled in the clamour of the alarm and rush of escaping air.

  With one hand gripping the suit closet, Steve turned to face him, his breathing slowing in the rarefied air. The particles had all gone and across the bay, the tug of decompression invited him to follow. Morton’s body had bent into a grotesque S-shape as he countered the drag and retained eye contact.

  Hang on, Steve. I’m nearly there.

  Alex? Steve’s subsequent thought was oxygen deprivation psychosis.

  Who else would it be? Where are you?

  Opposite the airlock, hanging onto a suit closet.

  Stay where you are, I’m coming in from your right.

  Okay. Psychotic or not, the codeword was acoustically encoded to Steve’s voice pattern. There was no shortcut to activating it.

  10:16 SUN 05:11:2119

  Corridor 04-02-01, Provenance, LEO

  Francois stood with Alex outside the maintenance bay doors. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  ‘I need to close the airlock and jam the other entrance first.’

  After listening to Morton’s diatribe, Francois had concluded his longevity would be more assured under Steve’s command than SIS’s. To defeat two enemies, it is sometimes necessary to befriend one. With the black Prefects and SIS AHs deactivated, his Garde Impériale could defeat CONSEC. Provenance would be his to command.

  Nonessential crew who wished to leave would be given safe passage to Earth. Some, like Captain Deon Brandleson and First Sergeant Nikodem Gorniak, would have no choice.

  He looked up at Alex’s blank expression, ‘Have you not yet finished?’

  Francois’s body tensed rigid as Alex grabbed his chest protector plate and lifted him off the floor.

  Alex leant in so close Francois could see the familiar sharpness of his vert olive eyes. ‘You don’t command me and neither do you understand the situation. If I can’t hear Steve’s command I can’t activate the program and Morton will have time to summon the Prefects.’ Alex opened his hand. ‘Now keep quiet, I’m nearly done.’

  Francois repositioned the chest plate and unclipped his holster. His Cogent was the one safeguard he didn’t intend to relinquish; Alex had adjusted it so it could fire at greater velocity, thus negating the black Prefects increase in speed.

  Alex stepped back from the doors. ‘Done. I’m going left. Prefects will have to come through either entrance; I suggest you don’t stand with your back to the doors. Ready?’

  Francois nodded. I do not command you now, but I will.

  10:19 SUN 05:11:2119

  Maintenance Bay 04-02-17, Provenance, LEO

  The pull on Steve’s body slackened at the same time as the calamitous alarm. He ran towards the opening entrance doors one hundred metres to his right. Alex dashed through, followed by Francois.

  Morton twisted his misshapen body in their direction, ‘You’re too late, Alex, and you, Francois, have signed your death warrant.’

  In the distant bulkhead the opposite pair of entrance doors exploded, a smoking hole gaped between them.

  His oxygen starved legs burned, but Steve had covered half the distance in a few seconds. ‘Janus!’ A second explosion drowned his shout.

  Morton was much closer than Alex. ‘Janus! The two faced roman god. How apt.’ He held up his hand, the interface card shimmered. ‘You cannot win.’

  Steve glanced left, a black Prefect burst from the plume of heavy smoke. Its cannon fired and Morton’s raised hand disintegrated in a shower of white-hot fragments.

  He was now only thirty metres from Alex. ‘Janus! Francois, shoot the Prefect!’ Steve’s stomach knotted when a smiling Alex grabbed Francois’s firing hand.

  Alex nodded in the direction of the Prefect. ‘I heard you the first time.’

  Steve slewed to a halt. The Prefect sat on deck, its indicator panel unlit, its cyclopic eye opaque.

  Behind him, Morton spoke. ‘What are your orders Commander?’

  Steve ignored him and approached a beaming Alex and a sheepish looking Francois. He reciprocated Alex’s smile and accepted the proffered MCD.

  Admiral Smithson’s face appeared on the screen. ‘Well done Steve, we’re in. Controllers have shut down the black Prefects and all AHs are under the Marionette directive. I’ll meet you back at the Pentagon, Commander. Smithson out.’

  Steve pocketed his MCD and placed his hand on Alex’s shoulder. ‘I need a cup of coffee, and this time I’m buying.’

  10:42 SUN 05:11:2119

  Cabin 42-18-3125, Provenance, LEO

  After a brief diversion to the bridge to collect Penny and the others, Steve returned to Alex’s cabin with a tr
ay of freshly brewed coffee. Penny and Dee sat on one of the settees, opposite Alex and Kacee. A furtive looking Francois stood by the bed.

  In an attempt to defuse any latent conflict, PSYOPS had decided everyone aboard Provenance should be informed of Colossus’s harmless trajectory. Knowledge that a few hours earlier would have killed you was now displayed on every viewscreen. Steve wondered how many people believed it to be true.

  Assured by Alex it had been repaired, he gingerly placed the tray on the hexagonal table and decided against pointing out the obvious tilt.

  Dee took Alex at his word and plonked his combat booted feet next to the tray. ‘So you gonna tell us what happened?’

  Steve picked up a cup and sat on the armrest next to Penny. ‘To be honest, I don’t know. Touching the dolphins triggered some sort of physiological change. I could speed up and slow down at will.’ Steve took a sip of coffee. He hadn’t enjoyed the experience; he didn’t want to be different, freakish. ‘Whatever it was, it’s passed now.’ The pain racking his body was testament to that.

  ‘Whatta ‘bout Alex?’

  Steve smiled. ‘Alex did what his parents created him to do. When I removed the second transducer, I loaded a Gateway program into his core. When Morton uploaded the correction algorithm to Core Command Alex copied the pathway. The Gateway jammed it open and INC walked in.’

  Dee let his head roll back. ‘Now all we’ve gotta do is sort out the mess downstairs.’

  Steve glanced across at Kacee. Like Penny, she’d washed her face and combed her hair, although her tunic still carried the stains of her bloody encounter with Alex’s alter ego. ‘How do you think PSYOPS will approach it, Kacee?’

  She looked at him, her face brightened and for one nerve-jarring moment he thought he heard her voice in his head. ‘Thank you.’ ‘PSYOPS’s first task will be to defuse the tension between the Resistance and Continuity before it escalates into a world war. She sighed. ‘Problem is, no one alive today can remember when they weren’t at war.’

  Dee’s face creased into a broad smile. ‘Just give the Drones a credit line and let ‘em go shopping. That’ll keep ‘em busy.’

  ‘I doubt that will be at the top of our list, or theirs.’ Kacee glanced at Penny, her smile faint but friendly. ‘I hope the next generation will grow up in a very different world to ours.’

  ‘Not sure everyone’s gonna wait that long.’ Dee’s head rolled forward. ‘I bet there’s a lotta people downstairs grinding a lotta axes. Which is why I’m betting I ain’t gonna be retiring anytime soon.’

  Steve shifted his gaze; Francois had almost reached the doors.

  ‘Dee, please arrest Monsieur Thibeauchet.’

  Dee jumped up. ‘My pleasure.’

  Francois pointed his Cogent at Dee, his eyes at Steve. ‘I do not wish to kill anyone.’

  Alex turned in his seat. ‘You can’t. At least not with that. My enhancements included removing the capacitor’s node connector.’

  Francois frowned as he inspected the Cogent. His face twisted into a smile. ‘Touché.’

  Dee strode across the room and grabbed Francois’s arm. Francois made a futile attempt to break the hold. ‘I am not the only one in this room who is Resistance.’

  Steve nodded at the door. ‘Take him to Nik Gorniak for processing.’

  As the door closed, Steve wrapped his arm around Penny’s slumped shoulders. ‘I knew you were Resistance the first day we met. That’s why I was sent to see you.’ He knelt beside her, took her left hand in his, and removed a ring from his pocket with his right. A diamond solitaire ring that had once been hidden by a ginormous price tag in a jeweller’s window in Barlton. ‘Will you marry me?’

  Penny burst into tears. ‘Yes.’

  10:43 SUN 05:11:2119

  Station 4, Core Command, Provenance, LEO

  HPU 912/28 processed the trajectory data from Provenance’s hull sensors in milliseconds. A ship wide alarm could wait; the priority was the preservation of the cargo.

  The ship’s architects, aware of their own fallibility, had removed humans from specific command and control situations. This was one such situation.

  Both drives received the same command:

  Disable manual overrides.

  Bypass pre-initialisation protocols.

  Calibrate engines for full thrust.

  Load all injectors.

  Vector thrust to galactic coordinates 0 170.

  Initialise.

  Seconds earlier the sensors had detected multiple missile launches on Earth.

  Provenance was under attack.

  Thank You

  Thank you for reading my book. If you have any questions or would like more information about the Provenance saga, please contact me at V.J.Kavanagh@ercurial.uk.