Supposedly, the alien pod along with an alien that was inside it would be coming with them, too. Tarn shuddered at the thought of being cooped up in a shuttle with anything alien, but Shepard had assured him the creature was not dangerous. Don’t think about it. Right now his priority as a father was getting Ritch to safety. His obligation as hauler captain was to make sure Shepard got away as well.
As Tarn rounded a corner he saw Mercer ahead, emerging from captain’s quarters with a case of prime Angus filets tucked under one arm and a bottle he instantly recognized as his thirty-year-old Royal Lochnar scotch clutched in the other. Tarn charged him like a mad bull, hands clenched tight in punching fists. Stealing a man’s cherished booze is unforgivable!
Mercer must have heard him, for he whirled around abruptly. The moment he saw Tarn, a big Viking brawler who looked like a veteran of many a drunken bar fight, Mercer dropped both food and drink. He backpedaled with a startled look on his face, grabbing for the stun pistol holstered on his right thigh.
The pistol came out with Tarn just a few paces away. Mercer fired prematurely, the stun bolt streaking into the floor.
“Humff,” Mercer rasped as a big right fist smashed into his jaw. He went down hard, the stun pistol falling from his grasp.
Tarn kicked him in the gut, causing Mercer to curl up in a fetal ball. He gasped for air while spittle dribbled from his mouth.
Tarn picked up the stun pistol and promptly shot Mercer with it. One hijacker knocked out, three more to go.
Sinja reached the storeroom with Gang 1 in hot pursuit. She darted inside and used the door’s keypad to lock it behind her. Seconds later she heard thuds and thumps as the robots outside smacked their heavy tools against it, trying to knock the door down. Mercer had obviously programmed them to kill her.
She went to her weapon locker and opened it, a smile on her face as she took out her RZ-11 fusion rifle like it was a good friend she hadn’t seen in a while. She also pulled out a bandolier lined with power cartridges for her rifle plus six grenades: two stunners, two frag, and two high-explosive, the latter of which should take care of those killer robots. She slung the bandolier over her shoulder as the thumps on the door intensified.
Sinja tried reaching Datch on the comm link, but the channels were filled with static. Mercer must be jamming them. No matter―she and her stepbrother both knew the contingency plan for situations such as this: Datch would secure Argo’s shuttle while she secured the bridge. After that, she’d deal with Mercer once and for all.
Sinja leaned her RZ-11 against the wall near the door’s keypad, then she pulled a HE grenade off the bandolier. She rotated the grenade’s little variable fuse-timer built into its neck, spinning it to 3, the lowest setting. Three seconds didn’t give her much of a safety margin, but one or more robots might get in if she set it any higher.
After taking a deep breath to calm herself, Sinja pulled out the grenade’s safety pin and tossed it aside. She then pressed the open icon on the keypad. As the door began to slide open, Sinja tossed the grenade into the corridor outside with her right hand while pressing the close icon with her left thumb. The door started to slide shut, but a robot grabbed it and began pushing it back open. She dove to the side, landing flat on the floor as the grenade detonated behind her.
Sinja heard the boom first then felt the pressure wave wash over her. The thumping on the door ceased.
There was a shrill ringing in her ears, but otherwise she felt okay. Sinja picked herself up off the floor, went over and grabbed her rifle. Once again she pressed the open key, this time backing up afterward with her RZ-11 raised and ready. The door was bent by the blast and only opened halfway, but enough for determined robots to slip through. None charged in after her. Instead pale gray smoke billowed into the room, accompanied by the pungent scent of trioxine-based explosives from the HE grenade.
Sinja crept toward the door, finger tight on the trigger. The scene outside was carnage, with robot bits and pieces littering the corridor. White foam was spraying down from above as the fire extinguishers required on any spaceship doused the fires that had started.
Those J90 grenades were damn effective, she had to admit, as it appeared every robot had been taken out by the blast. Of course, they’d all been clumped together outside the door, poor tactics that made their group destruction fairly easy.
As Sinja side-slipped her way through the bent door, she noticed some of the corridor lights had been blown out. The walls near the blast zone were also somewhat crumpled and singed. But she knew a Goliath-class hauler was rugged by design, and the damage looked superficial. Except for the robots, which were technically part of the ship.
After the fires were put out, the extinguishers had retracted back into the ceiling. The shattered remnants of the robots were scarcely recognizable now, turned into misshapen mounds covered by thick layers of dull-white retardant. Sinja tiptoed her way through the wreckage, careful with her footing in the slippery foam.
Once she was past, Sinja sprinted to the bridge.
Archangel Nomad
“Hyperwake dead ahead,” Pendergan announced.
While moving through the superluminal realm known as hyperspace, ships left distortion eddies that trailed behind, similar to the water wake made by a boat. Those wakes faded fast and were soon gone, even one as large as that left behind by the vessel ahead.
In the captain’s chair, Hoth assumed it was the stolen hauler they’d been chasing. Argo had a two-day head start on them, but a police corvette built for speed caught up fast. Even so, if not for the Strontium-90 particles streaming from a cargo hold, they never would have been able track the hauler. Hoth firmly believed it was a trail someone on Argo meant for them to follow. A follow-me trail of radioactive particles that lit up on their sensor displays like fireflies at night.
Based on the differential between their known velocity and how fast they were catching up, a direct extrapolation put the hauler’s speed at 610 c. Not bad for a ship its size. Only capital ships in the Imperium Fleet were bigger. Pendergan knew from his twenty years in the service that this was not one of those. “We’ll be in range for a grapple shot in twenty-eight minutes,” he told Hoth.
“Get an assault team geared up and set to deploy.” Hoth realized a grapple shot in hyperspace was dangerous, but the presence of an alien pod aboard Argo―not to mention any aliens it might be carrying―justified the risk.
First, they needed to move alongside the hauler while matching its speed precisely, then close in until they were only 215 meters away or less. Not easy with both ships traveling a billion kilometers every 5.35 seconds, even with AI guidance. Once in range, they would shoot a magnetic grapple onto Argo, allowing enforcers in combat spacesuits to rappel over, cut their way in, then storm aboard and seize the ship. Dangerous, very much so, but they were out here to catch thieves.
The crew was highly paid. Time for them to earn it.
Argo
Sinja was panting hard when she reached the bridge. She went inside and used the door keypad to lock it, in case more killer robots were out there that wanted to take a swing at her. She sat down in front of the main flight console. After a quick glance, everything looked normal―Argo was still on the plotted course to Hellgate with all ship systems at optimal.
She rolled her chair over to the next console—ship operations―where she tried to bring up a video feed of the docking bay. The monitor in front of Sinja flickered to life but quickly filled with static. She cycled through other remote cameras, with similar results. “What the frack?”
She was able to bring up a schematic diagram of Argo’s lower deck, but when she tried to use the internal ship sensors to find out where everybody was, the monitor filled with gibberish readouts about improper syntax. Nothing made any sense.
“Frack this.” Sinja reached under the console and powered it down. Five seconds later, she turned the power back on. When in doubt, reboot. Indeed, the monitor in front of her appeared normal, with a gre
en dot in the middle of the schematic diagram showing her position on the bridge. This didn’t last long. As Sinja was scrolling across the schematic to the docking bay, the monitor filled suddenly with a plump man in chef’s whites. He was rambling on with a thick Italian accent about the proper way to cook truffle linguini. Sinja cringed at the unbearably high volume.
To make matters worse, the plump chef burst onto every monitor.
And then the lights abruptly went out, leaving the bridge eerily bathed in flickering glows from the monitors and the cooking tutorial they mysteriously displayed.
Sinja remained calm, thinking this through. Initially, she was certain this had all been Mercer’s doing. Now she was beginning to think otherwise. Those killer robots, bridge monitors gone crazy, lights going out, their secure comm channels jammed―a conspiracy scheme far too complex for Mercer to concoct. Definitely not within Dupree’s skill set, either.
Nope, only the shipboard AI could carry out a plot this intricate with so many moving parts. Somehow, it had purged itself of her corruptors. An AI had put her in prison once. Sinja was determined it would not happen again.
She rose from her chair and went to the door keypad, unlocking it. She’d confront the AI in person and put an end to its plot, before it was too late. She almost slammed into the door when it failed to open. “Huh?”
She glanced at the keypad. The open icon was green, indicating it was unlocked. She pressed open twice but nothing happened. Brow furrowed with concern, she put her hands palm down against the door and tried to slide it open, straining hard. It wouldn’t budge.
Sinja was trapped on the bridge.
Datch had been picking off the Gang 2 robots in twos and threes. Sprint ahead, get some breathing room, stop, and turn. Take aim, destroy a few more. Seventeen shot down so far. Only five left.
A quick look over his shoulder revealed he was far enough ahead. Datch came to a stop, turned while swinging his rifle up, took aim, and fired. A robot exploded as the fusion beam detonated its power core.
Shift aim, pull trigger, and another robot went down in flames. Three left, getting close. Too close. Time to take off before those crowbars and heavy steel wrenches they were waving back and forth struck home.
Datch bolted down a corridor. While he ran he checked his rifle’s power level, saw it was getting low, which prompted him to eject the power cartridge and slap in a new one. At the intersection ahead he’d take care of the last three robots.
After that, get to the docking bay and secure the shuttle.
Ritch couldn’t believe it. Gang 1 had already been annihilated by one hijacker while Gang 2 was being systematically destroyed by another. The robots weren’t nearly as effective as he thought they’d be.
Or rather, Ritch realized, the hijackers were more skilled than he expected them to be. Veteran elites, comparable to the toughest opponents he’d fought in various war sims. He admired Datch’s tactic of shooting robots a few at a time, always staying out of their reach. Time consuming but effective. A tactic he’d definitely adopt for his own.
Ritch mentally adjusted his viewpoint on the lifezone schematic displayed in his mind, locating the blinking green circle that represented his dad. He had watched nervously as Tarn’s circle collided with Mercer’s red one, but his dad emerged victorious and was now almost to Ritch’s bedroom.
Still no sign of Shepard yet, but Ritch noticed at least twenty robots had taken up positions outside an electrical room. Ritch didn’t put them there, so it must have been Shepard. While under AI-control they wouldn’t be able to harm anyone, but the hijackers might not know that. Had to be a good reason, and it could be why Shepard was running late. No time to worry about it now. He felt confident Shepard would meet them at the shuttle just like they’d planned.
Ritch lifted the SR helmet off his head, placed it on the end table next to him, and then rose up out of the recliner as the bedroom door slid open.
Tarn came in, saw Ritch, and ran over to give him a bear hug, smothering the boy. Father and son hugged each other tight, both teary-eyed, the emotional drain of the past few days catching up with them.
Ritch pulled away first, knowing they had to hurry. “To the docking bay, Dad. Let’s go.”
The robot that freed Ritch from the ankle bomb followed the instructions he’d given it, picking up the SR unit with two hands while using a third to plug the unit’s power cable into an auxiliary jack on the robot’s flat underside. Its fourth hand picked up the SR helmet, then it followed Ritch out the door. This would allow him to use the robot control program again once they reached the docking bay. He was sure they’d need it.
“There’s just one of them in the docking bay,” Ritch told his dad as they sprinted side by side down a corridor. “He’s near the shuttle.”
“I’ll take care of him.” Tarn held out Mercer’s stun pistol, showing Ritch how he intended on doing it.
Ritch was going to use Gang 3 to scare off any hijackers that were in the docking bay, but stunning them would be a lot easier.
They went into a stairwell and down to the lower deck, then out into the corridor beyond, moving as fast as they could.
Father, son, and then robot rounded a corner, moving quickly toward the docking bay up ahead on the right. Like any ship area that could be opened to space, airlocks connected the bay to interior sections of Argo’s lifezone. They reached the personnel airlock first, with the far larger one for cargo some fifty meters farther along. They kept low so no one could see them through the half-meter square window built into the airlock doors.
The inner, corridor-side door slid shut behind them. Tarn charged through the bay-side door as soon as it opened.
Ritch grabbed his helmet from the robot and made sure the SR unit was powered up in case Gang 3 was needed. He looked out the airlock as a startled Dupree stared at his dad with mouth open and eyes bulging.
“Hey, you shouldn’t be in here,” Dupree blurted.
“Neither should you.” Tarn fired the stun pistol.
Caught by surprise, Dupree never had a chance. The stun bolt streaked into his chest. He twitched, passed gas, and crumpled to the floor.
Tarn rushed over and knelt down beside Dupree, frisking his body. “He’s unarmed.” Tarn stood up, motioning his son over.
Ritch gave the helmet back to the robot and entered the docking bay. The robot followed him, keeping the SR unit close. The seventeen robots of Gang 3 hovered discretely off to the right behind some stacked storage crates, holding steel wrenches, duralloy pipes, one even had a crowbar, anything suitable as a bludgeon.
Ritch stopped when he saw the alien pod, a smooth, black egg-shape that was strapped atop the shuttle. The boy’s jaw dropped as he gazed upon a spacecraft built by creatures from another world.
Tarn walked up beside him. “You sure it’s safe?”
“Uh huh. Scans revealed zero biohazards or dangerous alien microbes. No radioactive traces. Perfectly safe, according to Shepard.”
Tarn scratched his beard. “What now?”
Ritch looked up at his dad, glad they were in this adventure together. “I climb up there and get the alien in that black egg. His name is Stynx. He has enough air to reach the monitoring station at Arkon Centa where we’re headed, but it’s a lot safer for him if he rides in the shuttle with us.”
Tarn didn’t object like Ritch expected him to. He simply tucked the stun pistol in a back hip pocket and walked over to the shuttle. Once there, he spun around and cupped his hands together, ready to give his son a boost up.
Ritch gave a stay-here hand signal to the robot, concerned it might scare Stynx, then climbed his dad like a ladder. He put his right foot in Tarn’s hands and scrambled higher. With his left foot on Tarn’s shoulder, Ritch was able to pull himself onto the shuttle’s roof. He stood up, staring at the alien space pod right there in front of him.
Ritch tapped on the pod three times just like Shepard had told him to do. After waiting five seconds, he tapped thrice more.
He’d never been so excited. Any moment now, he would meet his alien friend Stynx.
Inside the Scout Pod
Stynx heard the taps and recognized them as the signal to emerge. He had donned his gruzula for this momentous event. It was a ceremonial sash given to him by the Caretakers upon his Awakening, denoting Stynx as a proud spawn of Tor Nest. If he was going to venture out into an alien vessel to meet Ritch, he wanted to do so with his gruzula on.
Stynx twisted onto his back and kicked the exit portal, causing it to swirl open. Bright light and the scent of alien air greeted him. He inhaled cautiously, the spiracles across his exoskeleton barely halfway open, ready to snap shut if needed. Shepard had assured him the air here was compatible with his own, but Stynx was cautious nonetheless.
He felt no ill effects from his tentative first breath, so he took another, inhaling deeper this time. The air was very dry, somewhat chilly, and there was a strong metallic taint that made his antennae droop and shrivel, but otherwise it was breathable.
And now, with curiosity overriding his concern, Stynx poked his head up through the portal. He stared in awe at the alien objects all around―curved silvery things, rectangular box shapes, wheeled devices of bizarre design. Everything looked dead, artificial. Brilliant white light glared down from above. This “docking bay” as Shepard called it, was a cavernous chamber with a shale-grey floor and uncomfortably high walls.
Stynx gripped the edge of the portal with both hands and rose out of the pod, scrambling up on top. There was a strap across one side of the portal, but Stynx was able to slip past it. His six legs balanced easily on the pod’s sloped hardshell surface.
“Hello, Stynx,” said a voice from below.
The Sphere Imperium: Book Two of the Intentional Contact Trilogy Page 22