Instead, he saw something else.
A human-shaped figure in a gray spacesuit ran from the auditorium, pursued by five bulky pantherax in their ceremonial robes. The pantherax were dying, their feline-like faces twisted and distorted by growths of the fungus, and their motions were jerky and erratic, lacking their usual predatory grace. Yet they were still faster than the human, and those black claws would tear apart the spacesuit like paper.
The human stumbled over a ridge of fungus and fell to one knee, and the maddened pantherax closed in for the kill.
“Hey!” roared March at the top of his lungs.
The pantherax paused, turning towards him, and March raised his rifle and started shooting.
His first plasma bolt drilled into the skull of the nearest alien. The skull of a pantherax was twice the size of a human head, so the plasma bolt only left a smoking crater in the alien’s skull. That was still more than enough to kill it, and the pantherax fell dead to the floor. March shifted aim and fired again, killing a second pantherax, and the remaining three aliens roared and charged towards him.
They were fast. Even in their dying state, they were far faster than a human. March got off one more shot, and a third pantherax fell. Then the other two were on him. March sidestepped, snapping up his left arm in guard, and intercepted the swipe of a pantherax’s left hand. Had the blow struck his right arm, it would have either shattered all the bones, or simply severed the arm at the elbow. As it was, it still knocked him back several steps.
The pantherax lunged after him for the kill, its fanged jaws yawning wide to bite off his head, the stink of the fungus rising from its throat.
But March used the moment, snapped up his rifle, and he fired. The plasma blast shot into the pantherax’s open mouth and blew out the back of its skull, and the alien collapsed. The final pantherax lunged at him, and March dodged, swinging the rifle like a club as he did so. His blow hit the feline creature in the back of its leg. The pantherax was wearing armor beneath its crimson robes, but March was strong enough to stagger the alien. The pantherax screamed in fury, and March pointed the rifle at it and held down the trigger. The first two shots burned through the robe and deflected off body armor. The next shot must have hit flesh because the pantherax let out a yowling cry of pain.
The third shot hit the pantherax in the face, and the alien fell dead at March’s feet.
He stepped back, breathing hard, and turned just as the human figure rose to its knees.
And through the faceplate of the helmet, March found himself looking into Carina’s face.
“Please don’t kill me,” she whispered, the helmet’s speaker making her voice metallic. “Oh, God, please don’t kill me.”
“How the hell are you still alive?” said March.
“I was heading back to the duty center after you left,” said Carina. “I heard screaming from the concourse. I thought…those biological weapons the Masters sold. What if they had been activated by accident? I ran to an emergency locker and got on a spacesuit. Then the screaming got worse. I went back to the auditorium, and everyone was dead. I tried calling the Masters, and no one answered. No one’s answering any calls.”
“The Masters are probably all dead,” said March.
She got to her feet, still staring at him.
“Odin and Alexei Murdan killed them, along with everyone else on the station,” said March. “That was their plan all along. Buy the canisters, activate one of them, and then take the rest without having to pay.”
“But...but all the other Guides,” said Carina. She did not seem terribly distressed at the news of the Masters’ death. If she had any friends on Burnchain Station, they had been among the other slaves. “They…they can’t all be…”
“Dead,” said March. “If you hadn’t gotten to that spacesuit before the fungus spores had touched you, then you’d be dead too.”
“Why are you still alive?” said Carina.
March tapped his left arm. “Odin configured the fungus to kill everything except humans with Machinist markers in their DNA. I’m not an Iron Hand anymore, but I still have the markers.” He hesitated and then decided to take a risk. “Can you help me?”
“Help you to do what?” said Carina. “To escape?”
“No,” said March. “I’m going to destroy the remaining canisters and kill Odin. His ship is docked on the other side of the station, at airlock twelve. Can you show me how to get there before he does? A shortcut?”
Carina opened her mouth, closed it, and then answered. “If I do…will you take me with you when you escape?”
“Yes,” said March.
“And you…promise not to sell me into slavery?” said Carina. “Or keep me as a slave yourself when you return to Al-Khazmar?”
“I promise,” said March. “And I’m not from Al-Khazmar. My friends and I are Calaskaran agents. If you come with us, we’ll take you back to Calaskar, and slavery is illegal there. No one will touch you on my ship.”
Carina hesitated, and then bobbed her head. “Yes. If you help me escape, I’ll help you stop Odin.”
“Good,” said March. “We need a shortcut to the opposite concourse.”
“I know the way,” said Carina.
“Wait,” said March. “Do you have the authority to command the defense drones?”
She blinked, and then her eyes went wide behind the faceplate of her helmet. “Yes, but only three of them at a time. Unless the main computer has completely crashed.” She turned and pointed. “You, you, and you. Come with me.”
The three chrome spiders clinging to the wall did not move at first. March noted they had ignored the fight with the pantherax. Yet the drones stirred, scuttled down the wall, and moved to Carina’s side.
“Good,” said March. “Let’s move. Which way?”
“That shop,” said Carina, pointing at a shop that sold what appeared to be ancient instruments of torture. The Oradrean secret police were probably loyal customers. “My computer access will let me into the utility corridors. From there we can head to the opposite concourse. If we hurry…yes, we can reach the balcony over airlock twelve before the Machinists get there.”
They hurried into the shop, which looked like some ghastly high-end museum of ancient barbarities, and Carina unlocked the back door. They passed through the back room and an office, and Carina opened a narrow metal door in the wall. Beyond was the familiar sight of a space station utility corridor, the walls and ceilings lined with pipes and conduits, the floor made of metal grillwork.
“It should be a kilometer down that corridor, then a right turn,” said Carina.
“Can you run in that spacesuit?” said March.
She raised her eyebrows. “I was in the top fourth percentile of physical fitness for all female Guides. Of course I can run.”
“Then do it,” said March, and he ran down the corridor, plasma rifle held before him, Carina following him, the metal legs of the defense drones clanging against the grillwork floor.
The earpiece crackled. “Jack?”
“What is it?” said March, touching his ear so Carina would know that he was talking to someone else.
“We have trouble,” said November.
“What, even more?” said March.
“That Machinist frigate just came back,” said November. “It returned from hyperspace about ten million kilometers from the station.”
“What is it doing?” said March.
“So far, it’s just sitting there,” said November.
“Shit,” said March. “Shit!”
“I take it you have deduced more than I have,” said November.
“There’s a Machinist task force waiting somewhere outside the system,” said March. “Probably a carrier with some cruisers and destroyers for an escort. The attack frigate went to meet them and give them updated coordinates and instructions. We’ve got about ten to fifteen minutes until they get here. And when they do, and as soon as Odin and the Oradreans are off the station, they�
��re going to kill as many witnesses as they can find.”
“In other words, they’re going to destroy Burnchain Station,” said November, “and as many of the ships as they can target.”
“Right,” said March. “Vigil!”
“Your orders, Captain March?” said the pseudointelligence.
“Start calculating a hyperjump,” said March. “One-thousandth of a light year in whichever direction is easiest to calculate. I want to leave as soon as we’re aboard the ship.”
“Acknowledged,” said Vigil. “Calculation underway.”
“John, tell me the minute that Machinist task force gets here,” said March.
“I will,” said November.
March fell silent and kept running.
“More trouble?” said Carina. To her credit, she wasn’t out of breath and could converse and run without difficulty. Fourth percentile indeed!
“Yeah,” said March. “That Machinist attack frigate went to get friends. As soon as they show up and Odin’s off the station, they’ll blow us up.”
“At least that will be a better death than from the fungus,” said Carina. “My God, the way they screamed…it was horrible, and I have seen many horrible deaths in my service to the Masters. To think that the Masters are all dead…”
“The damned idiots brought it on themselves,” said March. “They thought of themselves as devils, but they were only men. Odin is the real thing.”
“There!” said Carina. “Turn there! The junction on the right.”
March nodded and ducked through the junction, running down another utility corridor. Another five hundred meters and Carina pointed.
“That ladder,” said Carina. “That will take you to the back room of one of the shops on the first balcony of the concourse. From there you will have a clear view of airlock twelve.”
“Good,” said March. “Let’s go.”
Carina nodded, and they climbed the ladder. It ended in another junction box, and she unlocked a utility door as the defense drones clambered up after them. To judge from the back room, this shop sold high-end suits, and March stepped through the back room and into the sales floor. Suits hung on mannequins scattered around the shop, and March spotted five corpses, all of them in the process of dissolving as the fungus ate them. More ridges of fungus hung from the walls and the ceiling. But the far wall was made of glass, and through it, March saw the balcony and another concourse.
“Wait here a moment,” said March. Carina nodded, and March moved to the shop’s front door. It stood halfway open, and he peered through the gap and looked down the concourse.
There! Perhaps six hundred meters further down, he spotted a group of about twenty men escorting a small antigrav handcart, stark against the white marble of the floor. About two-thirds of the men wore spacesuits. Those would be Alexei Murdan and his Oradrean bodyguards. The rest of the men wore black. The Iron Hands, and in their midst March spotted the gray figure of Mr. Odin.
He had arrived in time, but just barely.
If not for Carina’s help, by the time he had gotten to airlock twelve the Oradrean freighter would have undocked and escaped. Even as it was, March had barely any time to plan. He would just have to do this simply and hope for the best.
“Carina,” said March, “can you keep an accurate count in your head?”
“Of course.”
“As soon as you hear the first shot, start counting the seconds off,” said March. “When you get to thirty seconds…no, fifteen seconds, instruct the defense drones to start targeting the canisters, and not to stop firing until all the canisters are destroyed. After that, they are to engage the Machinists and the Oradreans. Understand?”
“Yes,” said Carina, and she turned and started speaking to the chrome spiders.
March slipped through the door and dropped to one knee by the balcony railing, using one of the support columns as cover. He removed two grenades from his bandoleer, set the fuses for three seconds, and armed them, holding down the triggers with his left hand. With his right hand, he braced the rifle against the railing, trusting in the column and the damaged lighting to conceal him. Just as well that damned fungus seemed to be spreading everywhere. It had covered enough of the lights to throw shadows over the balcony.
The enemy drew closer. March slowed his breathing, picking out his targets. Odin first? He really wanted to kill Odin first. Yet Odin wasn’t armed, and March knew that the Cognarch would not be as dangerous in combat as his escort of Iron Hands. No, better to focus on the Iron Hands first.
March waited, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. As the men drew closer, he could see the expression on Odin’s face. The gray-bearded expression was satisfied, even smirking. March felt his own expression harden.
Another few steps and he would wipe that smirk right off Odin’s face…
Now!
March tossed the grenades over the railing, raised the plasma rifle, and started shooting.
His aim was good. His first shot took an Iron Hand through the head, sending the commando to the floor. His second drilled through an Iron Hand’s chest. By then the others realized what was happening and began to respond. Both the Iron Hands and the suited Oradreans raised plasma pistols, tracking towards March’s position on the balcony. Three bolts hit the railing, sending molten droplets of metal in all direction, and two more sizzled through the gaps.
Then the grenades went off.
Both detonated with a roar, the noise magnified and echoing through the concourse. March had thrown the grenades so they landed among the Oradreans, and the blast took down a half dozen of them, the shrapnel punching through their spacesuits. Some of them began to scream and clawed at themselves as the fungus spores found their flesh. March caught a glimpse of Odin’s face, the lips peeled back from his teeth in rage, and he raised his rifle, flipped the selector switch to full auto, and held down the trigger.
The rifle spat a constant volley of plasma bolts from its emitter, and the Iron Hands and the Oradreans ducked for cover. March got another Iron Hand and two of the Oradreans, and the rest dodged behind the antigrav cart or raced under the balcony. That was bad. March supposed they were heading for the stairs to the balcony, which were not all that far away. If they made it up here, he was totally exposed, and he would have to retreat to the clothing shop.
Then three chrome shapes burst from the store, leaped into the air, and perched upon the railing with a clang.
The defense drones went motionless, the turrets on their bellies rotating.
“No!” roared Odin. “Get those drones, get…”
All three drones opened fire on the antigrav cart.
Whoever had written the targeting software and the pseudointelligences for the drones had done an excellent job. The chrome spiders unleashed a volley of plasma bolts, and every single shot punctured one of the metal canisters. At once thick grayish-white smoke started billowing up from the breached canisters as if it had been held under great pressure. Odin shouted something, and the remaining Iron Hands and the Oradreans sprinted for the anteroom to airlock twelve.
March realized the smoke was biomorphic fungus spores, uncountable quintillions of spores. What had Siegfried said? That if the canisters were breached the fungus would start attacking everything around it? Given the fungus’s capability of remaking planetary biospheres, it might start eating its way through the metal of the station.
Either way, it was time to go.
March sprinted back to the clothes shop.
“Did it work?” said Carina, shouting over the howl of plasma fire.
“Yes!” said March. “Now run! Run for your life! If we don’t get to my ship before those spores get to us, we’re finished!”
He sprinted into the back room and then the utility corridor, Carina keeping pace right behind him. They returned to the junction box, and March slid down the ladder and to the next corridor. As Carina’s boots clanked against the deck, static crackled in March’s ear again.
“Jack?” came November’s voice.
“Here,” said March.
“More trouble just showed up,” said November. “A Machinist carrier, two cruisers, and four destroyers just emerged from hyperspace near the attack frigate. They are all heading for the station at full speed. The carrier’s launching fighters and Vigil says they will be in weapons range of the Tiger in another nine and a half minutes.”
“They’ll get the station first,” said March. “I just destroyed Odin’s canisters. He has no reason to hang around here. As soon as he gets off the station, they’ll destroy it.”
“You’re right,” said November. “That Oradrean freighter just launched, and it’s heading right for the Machinist capital starships.” There was a brief pause. “Jack, Dr. Siegfried says that you and Carina are probably covered in biomorphic fungi spores. They won’t hurt you, but they will kill us, and if Carina takes her spacesuit off, they will kill her.”
“I know,” said March, still running. “Tell Vigil to set the life support and the air scrubbers for maximum toxin filtration, and then lock yourself in your cabin with the door sealed for vacuum. Tell Siegfried and Northridge to do the same in the infirmary, and make sure that Alan’s secure and locked inside his. I’ll leave Carina in the cargo airlock and start the procedures for biological hazard scrubbing.”
“We’re on it,” said November. “Good luck, Jack.”
“You, too,” said March, and then he tore open the utility door to the shop of torture implements.
“What did your friends say?” said Carina.
“We’ve got eight minutes until the Machinists blow this place to hell,” said March. “Run!”
They tore through the torture shop and onto the concourse. The ridges and growths of biomorphic fungi that March had seen earlier had gotten larger, seeming to glow with their own inner gray light. Yet he didn’t see any of the new spores that had erupted from Odin’s canisters. Hopefully, they had outrun the spores.
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