Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5

by Chaney, J. N.

  “Where were you,” I asked.

  Andrea rippled into view as she replied. “Who do you think triggered the fire suppression?” She seemed entirely unbothered. She walked over to the man she’d shot and went through his pockets.

  “A heads up would have been nice,” I said.

  She stopped and turned back to me. “You are saying this to me?”

  Fair enough. I took a knee and kept watch. “I think these are Jovian Alliance special forces. The adhesive grenades could have been black market, but the railguns are too expensive to be practical for anything but military forces.”

  “I think you’re right. They aren’t carrying heavy field gear, but they’re wearing exoskeletons. I think it’s to compensate for gravity. They definitely aren’t Terrans.”

  “I’m wondering how a Jovian military unit is involved in all of this.”

  “We’ll figure that out after they’re all dead.” Andrea stood and pulled her matted hair back from her face. “

  We’re making good progress with that,” I said. “Between these three, that’s maybe a tenth of them down.”

  I walked over and took the dead man’s railgun, and I was disappointed to find that he didn’t have more replacement rails.

  Andrea gave me a questioning look. “Where’s your rifle?”

  “It blew up.”

  The magazine was still half-full, and the rails were fresh. It could fail before long and I’d be back to relying on my sidearm, but stopping power was more important. I didn’t want to chance another Jovian surviving a hit long enough to shoot back.

  A message came in from Vincenzo Veraldi. Raven and I are pinned down. We need support.

  Andrea replied. Can you hold your position until we get there?

  Affirmative. We can’t advance, but we can hold this position.

  We’ll make our way to you, she told him.

  “Okay, Tycho. We need to help them, but we have to get Dr. Markov first.”

  I had no idea whether there were any personal feelings involved in that decision or not. “So, we make our way to medical?”

  “You and I are the only patients here, so I doubt she’ll be there. We’ll head to her room.”

  “On you, chief,” I replied.

  We crossed the level, heading for the west stairwell. Andrea cloaked as we reached the door, and I took up a firing position a few steps behind her. I watched the impression of her figure in the falling water as she put a hand to the door and leaned to push, but then she paused and cocked her head. She reappeared, stepped back a few paces, and raised her weapon.

  Three seconds later, the door swung open and a Jovian stepped through. Andrea fired while he was still framed by the doorway. Her shots cut through his neck, and he fell forward onto the floor. Behind him, I saw three more.

  The right thing to do when entering a door is to always push forward. Regardless of what happens in those first moments after entry, the best course of action is to get clear of the doorway as quickly as possible. Even under fire, even if the first person goes down, maximal life affirmation is always to get out of that space. To get out of the fatal funnel.

  The three Jovians I saw did the wrong thing.

  As the first through the door fell, the next in line pulled back and leveled a weapon at Andrea. They’d failed to control the space, failed to exert pressure, and failed to observe all potential threats. They were hyper-focused on what was in front of them and oblivious to everything else. My window of opportunity was less than a second, but it felt like I had all the time in the world. I aimed down my railgun’s sights, exhaled, and fired.

  There was an audible snap of electricity. Blue lightning arced from the muzzle of the rifle, and through the weapon’s sight I watched the Jovian’s helmet and skull shatter like obsidian under the burst of hypervelocity slugs. Andrea overlapped my volley. Fireflies of red embers danced on the dying body as her gunfire raked across its chest.

  The two Jovians further back in the stairwell pressed against the walls for cover. The stairwell door swung back and came to rest widely ajar, propped open by the bodies on the floor. One of the Jovians blindly threw an adhesive grenade into the hall. It clung six feet up the far wall, a perfect throw to maximize lethality, but Andrea and I had anticipated their next move.

  They had thought to gain higher ground to escape the blast then use the doorway to the same advantage we had. They hadn’t considered that going quickly up a flight of stairs meant turning your back to an enemy, nor did they seem to realize that enemy was augmented humans. Andrea and I were halfway up the stairs when the grenade exploded. She pounced on the Jovian to the left while I gunned down the one to the right.

  Silhouetted by green fire, Andrea looked like some chthonic demon from a forgotten time as she ravaged the man. She clawed and tore at any purchase her fingers could find, ripping him apart with her not inconsiderable strength. Just as she’d done with the android.

  She whipped the blood and viscera from her skeletal left hand as she peered up the stairwell. “Looks like we’re clear to the next level, but stay sharp.”

  I stepped around the broken dead as I followed Andrea.

  18

  The fire suppression stopped halfway to the personnel quarters. I hadn’t noticed how loud the falling water had been, but every slosh of our boots in the ankle-deep water echoed in the still corridors. I’d expected to run into more Jovians alerted by the explosions and gunfire, but our path was eerily clear. Whether that meant we were lucky or walking into a trap was still an open question when we reached Samara’s room.

  Andrea listened at the door for a minute, then cloaked and tried the lock. To both our surprise, the door opened. I waited a few seconds and then stepped over to the doorway. I leaned left and right to get a view inside but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The lights were on, but aside from some waterlogged bedding and personal effects, the room was undisturbed.

  Andrea decloaked, already on her way back out of the room. “It looks like we’re going to medical after all.”

  “What if she isn’t there either?”

  “Do you have a better plan?”

  The answer was so obvious, I hesitated before answering. “You could call her.”

  Andrea brushed her hair out of her eyes. “She’s not in my contacts.”

  I didn’t know quite what to do with that, so I let it be. We wound back the way we’d come and made our way down three levels. The only trouble we encountered was a pair of hacked proxies just outside the antechamber leading to medical. Since my railgun was essentially a soundless weapon, Andrea signaled for me to shoot them at range. I still had doubts about my ability to shoot at an appreciable distance, but I managed to destroy both androids with only three bursts of fire.

  The door was locked, which I took to be a good sign, though it seemed to rouse Andrea’s suspicions. She motioned for me to take position off to the side and cloaked. She opened the door onto an empty antechamber. Shallow, standing water filled the room just as it had the halls leading here, but in that water were bits of medical supplies—bandages, swabs, graft lattice—and bullet casings.

  Andrea shimmered into view and signaled for a sweep. I entered the antechamber with my weapon raised, stepping as quietly as I could through the water. The lights were off beyond the glass doors on the other end. It didn’t look like anyone was in there, but someone could be crouched behind any of the beds or privacy curtains.

  Andrea opened the door to the main room slowly. The backlight from the hallway made our shadows dance across the room beyond. She entered first and went to the left, quickly moving to cover the space and get clear of the doorway. I followed suit and went right, almost immediately stepping on an android collapsed on the floor.

  I glanced at it long enough to decide it wasn’t a threat and continued into the room. The darkness made everything melt into everything else and all I could really see were black masses shifting in gray. I closed my left eye, hoping my augmented right could do
better. After one second, the room seemed to brighten with violet light. After three seconds, it was as if I were standing under the open sky at midday.

  Andrea called out, “Samara, are you in here?”

  There was a movement then, and we heard a response. “Yes, I’m here.” Samara stood up from behind a bed at the back of the room. She looked unharmed, but her shirt collar was stretched and slightly torn.

  Andrea approached her. “You need to come with us.”

  I noticed another downed proxy next to the bed. “What happened here, Dr. Markov?”

  “I was hoping you could explain that. The security androids attacked me.”

  I looked back to the proxy by the door. “Was anyone else here?”

  “No, it was just me. I was synthesizing Yulia’s pleximesh when—”

  Andrea interrupted. “We can save the war stories for after the war. Let’s move.” She readied her weapon and walked back to the door. She cloaked as she crossed the antechamber.

  I stepped closer to Samara and motioned her forward. “The facility is under attack,” I said. “We’re going to get you somewhere safe.”

  Samara nodded, and together we walked out into the antechamber. Andrea decloaked in the hall outside. “It looks like we’re clear. Come on.” Andrea took the lead, with Dr. Markov behind her and me in the rear.

  Now that we had her mother, Andrea was moving with a bit more caution. When we reached the west stairwell, Andrea didn’t cloak. She stood to the side and motioned for me to open the door. I pulled it open quickly, and she rushed into the stairwell. Seconds later, she quietly called back, “Clear.”

  Samara and I entered the stairwell. Andrea spoke while scanning the stairs leading up. “We’ll take Dr. Markov to holding. After that we head east to help Vincenzo and Raven.”

  She started down the steps to the lower level, pausing at the landing for a few moments and holding up a hand to signal “stop.” She stood still and stared ahead, then waved us forward again. As we passed the bodies of the Jovians, Samara remarked, “those wounds don’t look like gunshots.”

  “They aren’t,” I whispered.

  As we moved through the hallway, we came upon the aftermath of a sizable engagement. Broken android proxies were scattered across the floor. As far as I could tell, the fight had been entirely between two squads of proxies, with no humans involved. I couldn’t tell who had won.

  “There may be survivors. Watch your step,” said Andrea.

  The idea of a battle between squads of androids seemed oddly melancholy. No one had seen them fight, and no one even knew what they were trying to accomplish. They’d just met and wiped each other out on sight. The scenario was so absurdly pointless.

  We continued, winding through the corridors leading back to the east wing, and received a message from Andrew just as we reached the blind corner where we’d first encountered the Jovian forces.

  The enemy has entered the laboratory. Requesting immediate assistance.

  Andrea threw her hands up. “We can’t ignore that.”

  “Change of orders?” I asked.

  “Yes. Get Samara down to holding, then make your way over to the east side and support Veraldi and Sommer. I’ll head to the lab to help Jones and Young.”

  “Understood. Come with me, Dr. Markov.”

  “Yulia…” Samara started to say something, but Andrea was already cloaked and running down the corridor.

  The doctor sighed. “I really wish she wouldn’t do that.”

  “Run off without saying goodbye? She does that all the time.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I nodded. “Let’s keep moving.”

  “Yes, of course,” she answered. “Lead the way.”

  As we came to the west wing door, I saw a group of five proxies standing guard. I couldn’t remember if Andrea and I had sealed the door behind us. If we hadn’t, that was a tactical error I was now going to have to pay for, assuming these proxies were hostile.

  I put my hand on Samara’s shoulder and pulled her down as I took a knee. I spoke softly and explained. “There’s a group of androids ahead, and I don’t know if they’re friendly. There’s no cover in this hallway, so I want you to go back around the bend. If they start shooting, get as flat on the floor as you can and wait for me to come get you.”

  “Do you have another gun,” she asked.

  She’d said it with confidence. There was no fear in her voice. It was the casual, honest inquiry of someone familiar with weapons and violence. I drew my sidearm and offered it to her. “Have you used a handgun before?”

  She took it by the grip, index finger resting on the trigger guard. She pointed it to the floor and pulled the slide back halfway, enough to see that I’d left a round chambered. “In my younger days, my work often came with an element of danger.”

  I was somewhat impressed and felt a little foolish for assuming otherwise. Of course a black market prosthetics surgeon knew how to use a weapon.

  “Stay low and move slow,” I said, and turned my attention back to the group of proxies. They were spread out for the most part, making it difficult to target them all from the same vantage point. If I moved further from the wall and shot from the center of the corridor, I’d have a better line of fire. The opposite would be true as well, though, and they’d have an easy time gunning me down. Assuming they didn’t notice me move into position in the first place.

  No, I’d have to make it work from where I was. I’d shoot the two on the left of the door, wait for the third and fourth to move to return fire and take them down, then reposition and fire on the fifth.

  I aligned my sights on the left-most android, exhaled, and fired. The burst of slugs ripped through the proxy’s chest and threw it against the vault door. It spun and collapsed on the floor as the android next to it raised its weapon and walked into the hall, searching for the source of the gunfire. I swiveled my aim and fired again. My rounds cut through the android’s head, and its body stumbled three paces before also collapsing to the floor.

  I wasn’t sure how effective the proxies would be in offline combat. They couldn’t share experience data, but with two rounds of gunfire it wouldn’t be too difficult for the remaining proxies to guess where I was. Still, I kept to my plan and waited for the other androids to show themselves.

  A third proxy came into view, weapon raised. I fired even as I started moving, running toward the other side of the hall. I dove prone near the wall and took aim again. I squeezed the trigger, but the railgun only buzzed. That’s when I noticed the android had been hit but wasn’t returning fire despite being able to do so.

  A synthesized voice called out, “Aimicide warning.”

  Aimicide warning, the alert issued under friendly fire. The proxy wasn’t hostile. I stood and identified myself. “Personnel Barrett, SFI-4143.”

  The android lowered its weapon. The other two walked into view, likewise relaxed. I doubled back down the corridor until I could see Samara and waved her over. Checking over my railgun without duress, I could now plainly see the rails were spent. A slug was contact-welded midway down the length. As Samara approached, I held out my hand. “I’ll need that pistol back.”

  She handed it over. “I’m almost disappointed I didn’t have to use it.”

  I laughed at the joke. “Holding is one level down. We can take the stairwell just past that door and we’ll be right there.” I threw the railgun down and walked up to the proxies with Samara.

  The proxy I’d hit but failed to kill didn’t seem too damaged. The slugs had gone through its waist, but it still seemed functional. If it had been hostile a few minutes ago, if it hadn’t recognized me as an authorized individual, it might have got me.

  “Current action report,” I ordered.

  “This unit is defending level 4 junction. This unit is 2 of a 3-unit fire team. This unit is status bravo.”

  “Engagement history.”

  “Contact three minutes prior. Resolution: aimicide warning. En
d of engagement history.”

  So the only combat these proxies had seen was against me. That meant the junction was probably clear and the enemy had only succeeded in reaching the lab. It made sense; if the goal was to recapture the Warwick node, there was no reason to spread their forces thin. That must have been why we’d run into such small fire teams. The goal was to split us up through misdirection.

  I gave the proxy new orders. “Go to the lab on level 2. Force protection condition delta.”

  The androids moved as one, forming up and heading for the stairwell. Samara and I had to jog to keep up. The proxies cleared the doorway into the stairs just as Andrea and I had done, only much faster. Their coordination even without network support was impressive. If they ever developed sentience, they’d be monsters on the battlefield. Was that what had bothered me so much about Huxley?

  I pushed the thought from my head and refocused on the task in front of me. As the proxies filed up the stairwell, I led Samara down. We moved faster than before, owing largely to the pressure I felt to support Raven and Vincenzo. The attackers may have prioritized the lab, but they had used explosives against me in an underground complex; they were clearly willing to go to extreme lengths even in a diversionary encounter.

  The halls were quiet when we reached holding. “These are prison cells, but you’ll be safer in there than anywhere else,” I said as I unlocked the door. “I don’t know how long it’ll be, but the enemy can’t keep this up.”

  “Prison cells? Are there prisoners?”

  “Just one, but she’s locked up. Don’t worry.”

  The maglock disengaged, and I pushed the door open. As I turned to hold the door for Samara, I caught a glimpse of a figure in motion. It had been pressed against the wall by the door and was now twisting through the air toward me. In an instant, my jaw clapped shut and bursts of light flooded my vision. Heat radiated from the side of my face and I came damn close to blacking out as I spun and the floor rose to meet me.