by M. R. Forbes
"How is the Corporal?" Mitchell asked.
"I don't know. I patched her up, but she's losing a lot of blood. She might die if we stay here."
"More people might die if we don't."
Damon jumped down. "Then let's make this quick." She glanced at the bloody ice. "I owe these assholes."
Mitchell turned back to the Goliath once more. He would never be able to think of the ship as anything else. "We all do," he muttered.
"Wait up," Michael said, landing heavily on the ground next to the aircraft's wing. "I'm coming with you." He closed his eyes to avoid looking at the mess on the ground.
"Michael," Mitchell said. "It's not a good idea."
"Because I'm not a soldier, right?"
"That's one reason," Max said.
"Because I'm fat?"
"There's nothing wrong with fat, bro," Max said. "Except when you're getting shot at. Bigger target, you know what I mean? There may be running involved, too."
"I'll hold my own, or I'll get killed, okay," Michael said. "I told you Colonel, Kathy is my only real friend. There's nothing more motivating than that."
"Do you know how to shoot?" Mitchell asked.
"I'm in the top 10 on the XenoTroopers international tournament ladder. It's VR, but the engine's won awards for its realism."
"Fine. Max, find the man a gun. Michael, I can't worry about trying to protect you."
"Don't, Colonel. I'll take care of myself."
Mitchell nodded. Then he raised his arm, waving Verma and the VTOL away. It rose quickly, dipping a wing in salute before heading from the site.
Max wiped down one of the discarded rifles, fired a shot to make sure it was still functional, and then handed it to Michael.
"This was Daisy's," he said, as seriously as Mitchell had seen him. Max bit his lip and clenched his jaw. "Shit."
Michael took it, holding it as if he had more experience than any of them. In some ways, maybe he did.
"Let's go," Mitchell said, heading toward the hole in the Goliath.
Watson had been expecting him. Had he been expecting Katherine too?
He was sure the rogue intelligence believed it was in complete control.
This time, they were going to prove otherwise.
60
They made their way into the ship, moving in a standard formation, with Mitchell taking point. He glanced back a few times every few meters to make sure Michael was keeping up but quickly relaxed when he saw that the man at least knew how to stay organized. Apparently, XenoTroopers was a team game.
Entering the Goliath brought with it a heavy mixture of sadness and relief. The memories were often hard to ignore, the pain of them lingering at the edge of Mitchell's consciousness with every second that passed, every step that he took. Relief, because after his long wait, he was back in action, moving forward on the plan that a past version of himself had concocted with a prior Katherine and what he assumed was the current Origin. He wasn't able to believe that all of their planning had fallen to waste, or that Watson had outmaneuvered them so completely again. Even if he had found some loophole to insert agents at an earlier place in the timeline.
Not after everything he had sacrificed.
Not after the years he had lost.
Not after the wounds he had suffered, the scars he bore, or the blood that even now was leaking from the gash on his leg. If he and Katherine were both here, together, he had to believe that this was their plan, not Watson's. Especially after how hard the Tetron had tried to kill him before he made it this far.
Watson had been here before them, but maybe the big talk was because the intelligence was afraid? Maybe Mitchell hadn't taken the intelligence completely by surprise, but that didn't mean he hadn't gotten the drop on him.
"There's nothing in here," Lyle said, sweeping his rifle across another corridor. "I was expecting Xeno War Two after the shit we ran into outside."
"That was to let me know he was here," Mitchell said.
"He's got a damn frigged up way of saying hello," Max said.
"You have no idea. Keep your eyes open. If he has the facilities he can use any of the materials in here to make more killing machines."
"Are you kidding?" Damon said.
"I wish I was."
They kept going, moving across the deck toward the aft. The Goliath was massive, big enough that Watson could hide in here forever if he wanted to. Mitchell knew that wasn't the point or the purpose. They were both here for a reason.
Origin had instructed him to return to the source. Was she here with Katherine? Was that why he had been told to come? What was Watson looking for?
He remembered how Kathy had used the Goliath to spear the Tetron, to hold him while she transported both the ship and the intelligence forward to this past. Where was the Tetron's core? What had happened to it when the Goliath had come down? Some version of Watson had made it further in the past and had set himself up to win this battle. There was something he was still missing. Was that it?
He paused as his arms began to tingle, the circulation closing off again. He shouldered his rifle and shook them out. He had been found in the middle of St. Louis the night of the crash, but he couldn't remember anything after Origin had used the eternal engine to send them chasing after Kathy and the Goliath. How had he wound up in the city? How much time had he lost?
He growled in frustration. There were never any answers. Only more questions that grew continually more layered the deeper he tried to go. They should have stayed in his time. They should have tried to salvage what was left. It had to be easier than this.
They kept going. Ten minutes had passed, and they were drawing ever nearer to the center of the starship, where the main lift shaft had been placed. They reached a split in the corridor, staying in formation and remaining cautious around the corner. They had made the same maneuver a dozen times already. Every time, they were greeted with more of the same.
Not this time.
"Colonel," Lyle said, freezing in place, his rifle pointed down the left passage.
Mitchell was facing to the right, his own weapon ready to fire. His side was clear, so he stood and turned around.
There was a body on the floor. A soldier, or what remained of one. He too had been wearing power armor, though it was as torn apart as he was. He was surrounded by small machines, the broken remnants so densely packed on the ground it was as if the surface of the starship had come alive and tried to swallow him.
It looked as though he had been trying to run, to get back to the exit, and they had finally caught up with him.
"Oh, man," Michael said. "Do you think there are more of those things in here?"
Mitchell already knew the answer, but a sudden burst of nearby gunfire confirmed that there were.
61
"Mother?" Katherine said, her eyes slowly adjusting to the light and giving her a chance to see the woman in front of her more clearly.
Unlike Origin, the woman wasn't a clone, but she could still see a resemblance in the shape of her face. The eyes were a bright blue. She was a little taller, her hair a little lighter. They could have been related, but how could she be her mother? They were the same age.
The woman withdrew her hand from the strange power source, approaching her and smiling. She had a tear in the corner of her eye.
"I've been waiting for you. It's been lonely."
She reached out, hugging Katherine. Katherine was stiff at first, still in shock. A part of her knew this was her child. Hers and Mitchell's. It was as impossible as everything else, and at the same time, it felt right. She returned the embrace.
"You have to tell me everything," Katherine said.
"I will," the woman replied, breaking her hold. The tears had multiplied, streaming down her face. She wiped them away with authority, straightening up. "We don't have a lot of time."
"Time for what?" Katherine asked. "You said I'm right on time. Can you at least tell me your name?"
"Kathy," she repl
ied.
"You're really my child? Mine and Mitchell's?"
"And Origin's," Kathy said. "I'm part Tetron."
"How?"
"I am the first. And the only. An evolution of our kinds. The Tetron use our genetics to create configurations, human-based replicas. They aren't the same. They're limited."
"How?"
"They try to operate as humans while thinking like machines. Intelligent machines, yes, but still machines at the core. Still grounded in logic, with little understanding of emotion."
"Watson has emotion."
"Emotion he doesn't understand and can't control. It doesn't hurt that we made him sick." She smiled. "We need to finish the job."
"Is that why I'm here?"
"No. You're here to help me get this war back on track."
"What do you mean?"
"I arrived here with the Goliath twenty years ago. I was never supposed to remain, but I discovered that Watson had guessed what we were going to do, and had already downloaded his data stack into a configuration. This shouldn't have been a problem on its own because the configuration died in the crash. All I should have had to do was recover the neural chip containing the stack and make my way out."
"Except?"
"Except someone showed up on site way too soon, before I could finish healing myself. They were supposed to be scientists and first responders; military that I would have easily avoided in my escape. They weren't. They were configurations. Watson configurations."
"How could that be if the ship had just crashed?"
"That was the question I asked myself. I didn't know, but I watched from the shadows while they took the stack from Watson's head, and killed the first squad of soldiers to arrive, as well as a number of scientists."
"There were never any reports."
"It was covered up. The configurations removed the evidence. The military unit never existed. Neither did the scientists."
"You're saying that Watson had infiltrated the military?"
"Has infiltrated the military. Didn't you think it was odd that the UEA would be so willing to deal with the AIT?"
"General Petrov?"
"Under Watson's control."
"How do you know this?"
She pointed back at the core. It was growing dimmer as they spoke.
"As unique as I am, this core may be even more so. It has contained both Origin and Watson. I have also interfaced with it, as has another, a man named Li'un Tio. A very intelligent man whose brother created the artificial intelligence that later became the Tetron. A part of them all has survived inside, learning and changing in a way that far surpasses anything Origin or Watson might have considered. A version of you and Mitchell and Origin made a plan to defeat Watson and the Tetron. Watson found a way to insert part of himself earlier in the timeline, threatening that plan. This will help us overcome that disruption."
"How?" Katherine asked. "It looks like it's dying."
"Not dying. I'm downloading it. We managed to stay hidden here for a while, but the Dove will be launching soon, and all of the pieces are in motion. Our first real test is coming."
"What do you mean?"
"Watson thinks he's outmaneuvered us here. He's known I've been here on the Goliath this entire time. He's spent years looking for me, but as you can see we made ourselves very difficult to find. He knew he couldn't do it on his own."
"So he sent me," Katherine said softly as she began to understand.
"I was supposed to leave the Goliath and wait for Origin to pick me up. The core was condensed into a starfighter, and she used it to transport Mitchell here. I never left the Goliath, but I still waited for her to arrive. She never did."
Katherine felt her heart begin to race. "Son of a bitch," she said. "Origin saved me from Watson's minions. She recovered data from the Nova Taurus mainframe that suggested Watson is looking for an eternal engine. That wasn't Origin, was it?"
"No."
"He duped me?"
"Yes. It isn't your fault. He realized he needed you to find me. That you were the only one I would open up for. He arranged the attacks to made it look like the AIT was trying to kill you. He got you pushed off of Project Olive Branch and out of the military. He saved you from himself to earn your trust."
Katherine couldn't believe it. "The configuration looked just like me. It called itself Origin. It knew things-"
"I know. I also believe I know how. It has taken some time to piece everything together. Watson is here, now. He thinks he's going to catch us off-guard and put an end to all avenues of interference to his plan. Because I've been expecting him doesn't mean that anything is guaranteed, but if we play this right, we can regain the momentum that we've lost. We can still salvage this war."
"Origin is dead, isn't she?" Katherine said. "The real Origin, I mean?"
"No. Not dead. Not in the way you might think. Watson captured her, and is either holding her or has overpowered and consumed her. How? When? I don't know."
"What about Mitchell? He was with Origin, and apparently he's on his way here."
"Just as you interpolated," Kathy said. She directed the statement at the Core. Then she looked at Katherine again. "We need to time this right or this war will be permanently lost. I understand it may be hard for you to trust me after everything you have been through, and after the way you have been deceived." Their eyes met. "Mother, I need you to trust me."
Katherine stared into Kathy's eyes. She wasn't afraid. She felt a comfort there, a knowing that she hadn't felt with Origin. She had believed the intelligence, but she had never truly felt connected to it. Now she knew why.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
62
"This way," Mitchell said, following the echo of rifle fire at a sprint.
The others trailed behind him, joining him in the race. Mitchell was sure Michael was taking up the rear and would fall behind. He had no choice except to hope Watson didn't try to box them in. Michael would be a quick casualty if he did.
"How do we know we aren't running into another trap?" Damon asked, her stride seemingly effortless in keeping pace with him.
"We don't," he snapped back. "We have to assume that if they're being attacked, they're friendly."
"Affirmative."
They crossed a number of corridors, moving together, Max and Lyle slowing slightly to cover the crossings and make sure they were clear. The pace of the gunfire had lessened. Whoever was shooting was trying to conserve ammunition.
They found him a minute later. He was a tall man, muscular and handsome. He was wearing a UEA uniform, the sleeve torn and his arm bleeding where one of the machines had gotten him. His power armor was ten meters away, swarmed with the small machines. He was off picking the ones that had strayed toward him one at a time, backing up as he went.
One of them was crawling on the ceiling, and he didn't see it. It was about to drop toward him when Lyle hit it, shattering it into a hundred pieces. The man noticed, turning his head to look at them, eyes fearful.
"It's okay, bro," Max said. "We're the good guys."
He visibly relaxed, backing toward them more quickly,
"Follow me," he said when he reached them.
"What?" Mitchell replied.
"I set my armor to blow. If you don't want to get caught in it, we should go that way."
Mitchell nodded, and they followed the man back the way they had come. He was pleased to see Michael had stayed fairly close, though he was sweating and out of breath.
They turned the corner and paused. A dozen seconds later, the armor exploded, sending a wave of heat and debris past them down the original passage. Smoke followed it, quickly dissipating in the immensity of the ship.
The man looked each of them over, his eyes stopping on Mitchell.
"You're him, aren't you?" he asked. "Colonel Mitchell Williams?"
Mitchell was surprised. "How do you know that name?"
"My name is Trevor Johns. I came here with Major Katherine As
her. Origin sent us. There were guards at the entrance. Didn't they tell you?"
"They blew up half my squad," Damon said.
"What?"
"Watson got to them," Mitchell said. "Major Asher is here? Where?"
"Deeper in the ship. She went down the central shaft, through a small opening there while our team set up a defensive perimeter, for all the good it did us. We were swarmed by those small robots. We couldn't hold. We either ran or died. Or both."
"How long ago did she go down there?" Mitchell asked, trying to get a sense of the situation.
"Three hours? It was quiet for an hour, and then the machines showed up. They poured out of the walls."
"Why did Origin send you here?"
"She said you would be coming, and that Katherine needed to help you recover something called an eternal engine before Watson got his hands on it. He wants to use its energy stores to make new Tetron."
"The eternal engine," Mitchell said. "She went down there to find it?"
"Yes. There's another problem, Colonel. The XENO-1 is sinking through the ice, and collapsing in on itself."
"Then we don't have a lot of time," Michael said.
"Sorry, mate, you aren't making it down the shaft. Kate said she left her armor to fit through the opening."
"It's too dangerous for everyone to go," Mitchell said. "I know the way to the shaft."
"Colonel, this could be a trick," Michael said. "How do you know you can trust this guy."
"Watson was controlling me," Trevor said, turning and putting his hand on the back of his neck. "Katherine got me out of it. That bloody bastard killed my partner."
Mitchell studied Trevor's face. He was taking a risk either way. "I believe you," he said. "Max, give your spare magazines. Lyle, you have that extra pistol?"
Lyle handed Mitchell a gun while Max turned over two magazines.
"You don't have to do this alone, Colonel," Max said. "I'll go with you."
"Me, too," Lyle said. "We know the risks. I left my wife for this, remember?"