The Ruby Celeste Series - Box Set, books 1 - 3: Ghost Armada, Dire Kraken, and Church of Ife

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

  Ruby spun. Camera feeds were one thing. Her eyes were another.

  “We’re investigating. Natasha, I want you with me, please. Trove—”

  “Yes, Miss?”

  “Contact Mikhail. I’d like him with me too.”

  “And myself?”

  “Remain here.”

  He spluttered. “What?”

  “Much as I value you and your ability to keep me in check—”

  “Or at least attempt to,” he said.

  “Or at least attempt to,” Ruby echoed, “you’re injured. I need you here. Kick your feet up.”

  Trove pressed his lips into a line, but nodded. Ruby patted his shoulder, then turned to the technicians.

  “Remain alert. I want us ready to move at a moment’s notice. I don’t see that we’ll need to; Miss Channing has an excellent hold on the situation from her position. But be prepared.” Glancing to Trove, she said, “Have Reuben, Glim, and Herschel on defense. Again, I don’t expect it’ll be necessary—but should the need arise, they’re here.

  “Be alert. Be prepared. Be ready. And stay safe.”

  Ruby took in her technicians’ nods.

  Her eyes fell to Natasha.

  “Off we go.”

  7

  “Holy shit.”

  “I’d have put it more eloquently, Mr Khorkov,” Ruby said, “but yes. I fully agree with your sentiment.”

  In person, the structure was even more impressive.

  The Harbinger was one hundred and nine metres in length. The landing pad it now rested on could handle twice that, and the room was even larger: six hundred metres in diameter at the least. The shaft they’d descended was minute compared to this space.

  The landing pad was a raised circle in the centre of the room, walkways moving off and trailing downward. Ruby followed the nearest with her eyes. It approached the bowels of the room, but never touched, disappearing through a hole in the wall. The only connections were the struts holding the walkways in place.

  No wonder it never touched the floor. That, too, was made up of pipes and humming machinery and blue light. Sheets of metal overlaid like the scales of a fish.

  Was the whole construct built like this?

  “Which way do we go?” Ruby asked.

  “Does Brie know?” Natasha said.

  Ruby tapped her communicator. Her connection with Brie held—barely. She must’ve parked the kraken right on top of this thing to have remained in range with this much distance and metal separating them.

  “Brie, we’ve got a couple of routes available. Any idea which we can take that might lead us to the Exceptional Luck?” Or the scavenged contents of its hold, at least; Ruby couldn’t imagine the ship had been kept. Stripped for parts, perhaps. And the bodies? Ruby was sure they weren’t around here anywhere, either.

  “I’m not sure,” Brie answered. Her voice was distant, and Ruby had to press the communicator to her ear and block the other with a finger to hear. “They all go in different directions, and open out—but I’m not sure what the rooms are for.”

  “Which one has the shortest trek?”

  “There aren’t any marks of designation. Um … take the northward passage.”

  Ruby glanced to Natasha and mouthed, “North.” The navigation leader pointed to a walkway at her right.

  “All right. We’ll head that way now. Keep poking around.”

  “Will do, Captain.”

  Lowering her communicator, Ruby nodded in the direction Natasha pointed. “That’s where we’re going.”

  “That where we’ll find our treasure?” Mikhail asked.

  “Hopefully.” Ruby looked around one final time at the domed room. “Final check. Got everything?”

  Natasha patted her belt, and the pistol she’d holstered there. Mikhail did the same, then unslung the rifle thrown about his chest, ascertained a magazine was loaded, and repositioned it with a nod to Ruby. Ruby mentally checked the scabbard at her hip.

  The walkway descended fifty metres in a squared spiral. There were no rails, but it was wide enough for the three of them and more beyond.

  Ruby wandered close to the path’s edge, staring down at the machinery twelve metres below. Her eyes fought to make out what might be further down, but it was so thickly packed, and the pulsing lights bright and blinding.

  “What’s all this for?” she wondered aloud.

  “Brie said this thing can transform itself,” Natasha said. “I guess whatever’s necessary to make that happen.”

  “But why didn’t it transform for us? The Exceptional Luck found a rainforest; all we found was cloud. Both times.”

  “The kraken is malfunctioning now. And Brie did say most of this thing’s systems aren’t locally contained. If that thing is damaged, so is this.”

  Ruby frowned. That didn’t explain the first time. Regardless, she cast the strange flooring a final look, then carried on. That was a question for later.

  The opening in the wall loomed. It was shaped like an eye turned on its side, reaching eight metres in height. The walkway entered directly through the middle, giving four metres of clearance above and below.

  “Why is it so big?” Ruby asked.

  Again, Natasha shrugged. “Access, maybe.”

  “For what?”

  “Machines? Maintenance, repairs; that kind of thing.”

  “Whoever repairs this place can’t come around often,” Mikhail said from the front. “The kraken took a hit weeks ago.”

  Ruby glanced at her communicator. The signal to Brie held, but it couldn’t get much weaker. She wondered how much longer it was before they were out of range—and alone.

  8

  After a mile of following straight walkway, a room opened out ahead. Like the first, it was a massive, cavernous space. More openings littered the walls, and the trio of new walkways combined with the one Ruby, Natasha and Mikhail were on, converging in a helix in the room’s centre.

  “Great,” said Natasha. “Which direction now?”

  Ruby glanced at her communicator. The connection was dead. No hailing Brie.

  “Damn,” she muttered. “I guess we just have to guess and hope for the best.”

  “Just what we like best,” Mikhail said with a grin.

  “You, maybe,” Natasha said. “I’m more inclined to know what I’m walking into, these days.”

  “Stop being so rattled. Brie’s got our backs.”

  “Let’s go this way,” Ruby said. She tracked a walkway, following into the western wall. The light was different that direction; an orange glow came through the opening, streaking up the walls a couple of metres before transitioning to the same blue light they’d seen thus far. Despite the change, it continued to pulse with the same cadence.

  “Worth a shot,” said Mikhail. “Something’s clearly different that way.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not different in a bad way.”

  “You’re such a buzzkill, Tasha.”

  Ruby ignored their conversation. Her eyes roved. Except for the lack of landing pad, and the orange light coming from one of the access ways, this room could have been the same as the first. Same domed ceiling; same strange walls and floor; same vastness with nothing to fill it.

  Her thoughts turned to Francis and Brie. What were they doing now? Brie was surely fighting her way through code; reprogramming, taking more of the kraken and this construct under her control. Francis would be … sitting around, Ruby guessed. And worrying. That was what Francis did. It was sweet.

  Three hundred metres, they went up the new corridor. Still just as straight; still just as mysterious. Only the light had changed.

  Then, as they came closer, something new resolved: an orange stripe, wrapping the walls. Ruby squinted, frown lines on her forehead. When less than fifty metres remained between herself and this new feature, she jogged forward.

  “What is it?” Natasha asked as she drew near.

  “A tank,” Ruby said.

  Four metres wide, the glass struc
ture was filled with glowing orange liquid. It was translucent enough to see a fat bubble loll up from the bottom, but not penetrable enough to see what lay beyond the tank.

  “That’s the light we’ve been seeing?” Natasha exchanged a glance with Mikhail as if to ask, Are you seeing this? “What’s it for?”

  “Coolant?” Mikhail suggested.

  “It glows.” When Mikhail shrugged again, Natasha turned back to the tank that engulfed them. “Funny coolant,” she muttered.

  Ruby watched. She longed to reach out and touch it. But there was too much empty space. She’d never reach.

  “Come on,” Mikhail said at last. “We should keep moving.”

  “Yeah,” said Ruby. “Let’s go.”

  Still, she couldn’t resist a final look before they carried on, skulking further into the alien machine’s innards.

  9

  Two rooms on, and the light had changed again, this time turning green. Ruby wasn’t sure how far from the Harbinger they were, but they were well out of communicator range. She’d checked for further signals from Brie, but she too was gone.

  They’d found nothing. Piping and metal sheets and another great tank, filled with luminescent green fluid. But nothing more.

  “We should turn back,” said Natasha.

  Ruby: “What?”

  “We’ve been walking for forty minutes, without any clue of where we’re going.”

  “We’ll find something soon.”

  “What if Brie has cracked a schematic? We might be going completely in the wrong direction. At least if we turn back, we can radio her from the ship for an update. Maybe get her to send some information that might help us.” Natasha paused, stopping where she stood and looking in both directions up the path they now followed. “Besides,” she added, “every time we go through one of those rooms, we meet more walkways. Sooner or later we’re going to forget the way home.”

  Ruby’s mouth pressed into a line. “I can remember the way we came.”

  “I never said you couldn’t,” Natasha sighed. “But memory is fallible.”

  “She’s right,” Mikhail said. “You’re excellent, but we all have our limits. We might never get out. At least if we turn around we can see what else Brie has found out for us.”

  Ruby opened her mouth to respond. Before she did, something crackled throughout their corridor. Near-deafening, it whined before quieting.

  “What was that?” Mikhail asked.

  A voice echoed across the space. “Miss Celeste!”

  Ruby’s eyes widened. “Brie!”

  “God, I hope you can hear me. I’ve hacked into the communication network. Had to jimmy together a connection with my communicator and the kraken, but it should suffice. Now I can broadcast to you. But you won’t be able to talk back, I’m afraid. Can’t get that working. Maybe with more time.”

  Ruby grinned. “Yes,” she said, low. “I knew you could do it.”

  “I’ve been able to triangulate your location,” Brie went on. “You’re a third of the way along an access route that leads to a maintenance bay, another mile or so up, and then terminates in a holding zone. I can’t get to inventory yet, but if you’re looking for the Exceptional Luck, I think you’re heading in the right direction.”

  Mikhail pumped his fist and grabbed Natasha in a hug, swinging her about in a tight circle. The grin on Ruby’s face widened. Waving her comrades to part, she set off again at a march, Natasha and Mikhail following behind.

  “This thing is incredible,” Brie said overhead.

  “You’re telling us,” said Mikhail.

  “I’m still patching systems up, but I’ve been able to access a trove of new data since we last spoke. What you’re standing in; it’s designed to capture trade ships. It tracks public information, then intercepts those with valuable loads. When something is close, it arranges itself into a preset configuration, and then sets this kraken on them. The Exceptional Luck was the last thing it felled, but there are countless more listed in its databanks. And that’s only named trade ships; it’s knocked other ships out of the sky too, ships it wasn’t tracking or trying to intercept. Last of which was three days before we first encountered it.”

  “Tesla’s friends,” Ruby said.

  “I still don’t understand why it didn’t generate terrain on our approach,” Brie continued. “I guess it’s down to energy consumption; that thing looks expensive. So it reserves transformations for high-value targets. Anything else that comes by, its weather synthesisers kick into high gear, generating a storm. The subsystem that dealt with that was malfunctioning; I patched up enough of it to figure out what it did, then killed it, in case it envelopes us again.”

  Mikhail pumped his fist again. “Nice one, Brie! Tasha, I hope you enjoy eating your words.”

  Natasha laughed. “Let’s just get there first. Come on.”

  They broke out into a run, Brie’s voice relaying further information overhead.

  Ruby couldn’t help but grin. The Exceptional Luck might not have lived up to its name, but if it fostered any last good karma, she had surely inherited it.

  10

  Francis watched screens over Brie’s shoulder. She’d propped her communicator in front of her, and spoke at the same time as sifting through the kraken’s systems and repairing code.

  On display, a partial schematic of the cocoon was visible. Blinking lights approximated Ruby’s position, as well as the Harbinger’s. They were a way off yet, but closing in on their goal.

  The kraken clunked. It shifted.

  Brie cried, “Oh!”

  Francis’s eyebrows knitted. He pulled himself to his feet—and then stumbled as the kraken moved.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  Brie didn’t have to answer. Every screen in the room blanked, and then an electronic voice announced itself.

  “Intruders detected!”

  The lights switched off. Brie gasped.

  Underfoot, movement.

  “What’s happening?” Francis repeated. “What’s going on?”

  “I—I think I repaired too much code,” Brie said. “It’s taken back control!”

  “What? But—you can get it again, right?”

  “I don’t know!” Brie’s fingers flew. “I can work in the dark, but—it’s not letting me back in!”

  “Keep trying.”

  Another lurch. Francis steadied himself against the console, gripping tightly in the sudden black that had swallowed them both.

  Something buzzed a noise of denial.

  “I can’t get back in!”

  “Initiating defensive procedures!”

  Francis shouted, “Shit!” He grabbed the back of Brie’s chair. “Take it back, quick!”

  “I’m trying!”

  Through the slowly resolving darkness, Francis stared in horror as Brie hammered keys frantically—and again and again was answered by that same buzz as the kraken’s systems held out on her. Systems that were now mobilising machinery deep below—machinery that would kill Ruby, Natasha, Mikhail—everyone.

  Retaliation

  (Chapter Twelve)

  1

  A resounding clunk echoed. Though Ruby’s feet carried her forward, Natasha flew to a stop, and Mikhail did the same.

  “What was that?”

  Ruby paused. She looked back to her crewmates. Their excitement was gone, replaced by confusion.

  “Maybe Brie …” she started. She waited to hear the technician’s voice, providing some explanation. But only silence came—silence that shouldn’t have filled the air at all. What had happened to Brie’s excitable voice as she walked them through all she’d found?

  Something clunked again. It came from the direction they’d been running toward.

  “I don’t like this,” Natasha said. Her hand gripped the pistol at her side. Likewise, Mikhail had swung his rifle round, directing it to the floor.

  “Maybe it’s just—” Ruby said.

  Another clunk—and then more n
oises. The sound of machinery coming alive.

  Green light pulsed faster.

  “What’s happening?” Natasha shouted over the noise.

  “I—don’t—”

  The walls of the corridor flexed and moved, as if inhaling and exhaling—and began to press closed.

  Ruby’s eyes turned to whites.

  The walkway ahead broke apart, folding away before the walls swallowed the space where it had once been, moving ever-forward, toward the three—and at the fore, Ruby, frozen—

  “Ruby!” Mikhail shouted.

  Terror shot through her veins. The world tunnelled—

  “Ruby, fucking move now!” Natasha screamed.

  Spinning on her heel, Ruby ran. Natasha and Mikhail waited, a dozen metres away which could well have been a thousand—and then they were sprinting alongside her, fleeing from the terrifying fury advancing behind.

  “What happened?” Ruby yelled.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care!” Natasha shouted back. “We need to get out of here!”

  “The gems!” Ruby gasped.

  “Forget the fucking gems! They’re worth piss if we don’t get out of here alive!”

  “I don’t understand what—”

  “Just come on!”

  They burst into the previous room. For a second Ruby wasn’t sure of their route back; then she pointed a finger at the opposite wall and shouted, “That way!”

  They tore around the crisscrossing spiral of walkways. Behind, metal shrieked as the opening they’d come through closed. Already a stitch screamed in Ruby’s side as she pumped her body for all it was worth.

  Metal whined, and Brie’s voice was back. It was barely audible over the roar of machinery.

  “Miss Celeste! The kraken’s systems locked me out! I’m back in, but I don’t have much control. That thing—it’s transforming, and I can’t stop it! You need to get out!”

  “You think?” Natasha shouted.

  Through the next corridor. It moved in and out. Ruby pressed harder, teeth gritted against the white pain spreading across her torso.