by P. R. Adams
Finally, Rimes shrugged; there wasn’t much else for him to say. “Theroux’s extremely capable.”
“I would advise keeping him in front of you at all times.” Duke’s last words transformed to a whisper as Meyers, Sung, and Watanabe approached.
Meyers took point for the trio, nodding back at the tarp when he came to a stop. Sung and Watanabe seemed almost deferential. They had already begun assembly of two objects from several of the larger components. One of the objects had the appearance of a long, smooth cylinder with latches and plugs.
“We’ve completed the inventory.” Meyers sounded excited. “They came prepared, that’s for certain.”
“What’ve you got?” Rimes tried to gauge their state of mind; they all seemed to share the same excitement and hope.
“Well, to start with, they brought a portable stasis device down here. I guess that supports some of what Sheila was saying about that thing wanting to escape? I’m not sure how they planned to get it into the device. I mean, it’s not organic, so I’m not sure what stasis would do to it. Maybe some of the rest of the equipment would’ve helped with that?”
Duke leaned in, intrigued. “Such as?”
“Well, the big cylinder you can see there is the stasis device. That half-assembled box next to it is basically a vircator, but with some modifications that make me think they had some idea what they were up against here.”
“A what?” Rimes exchanged a confused look with Duke.
“It’s a type of EMP generator.” Meyers rubbed his hands together. “But this one’s designed to use captured energy rather than relying only on its own. It has some of the best heat and electromagnetic shielding I’ve ever seen in something that size and its sensors…impressive. Clever stuff. It could handle plasma, if that’s really what that thing was putting off. I ran a test, and it’s working, despite whatever it is that’s messing with our systems. It’s got a lock on our little friend down below. Oh, and it has a detailed map of this entire structure. They must’ve sent a pretty powerful probe overhead at some point. Sure doesn’t sound very coincidental to me.”
“On the contrary; it sounds extremely promising.” Duke smiled broadly, and cocked an eyebrow at Rimes, as if commending him for his team’s work. “Did they have anything else, other surprises that might help us?”
“A few things.” Meyers scratched at his whiskered cheek. “I’m not sure what they intended, exactly, but it looks like they have what amounts to an industrial strength air conditioning unit. Given the size of that chamber, Watanabe thinks we could knock the temperature below freezing in a few hours. Sung thinks that’s possibly going to kill off the fungus, or at least give us a shot at disrupting whatever symbiotic relationship it has with the construct, so maybe that was the intent.”
“So they knew about the fungus, too?” Rimes shook his head in disbelief.
Meyers tapped a quick beat against his chest armor. “They must have known a lot more than anyone guessed.”
“As I warned you, Captain.” The smugness on Duke’s face was infuriating.
“So, um, we’d need to seal the chamber off somehow if we want to get the temperature down, so there’s some risk.”
“Everything comes with risk.” Rimes hated the casual tone in his voice. The thing had melted two genies with plasma. The risk was huge. “Anything else?”
“Well, there’s what may be the biggest stun gun in the universe. If I’m reading the specs right, it can generate over fifty-five Joules in a sustained pulse running nearly three seconds. That may not match what that thing down below is tossing around, but according to the readings, it’s at the opposite polarity. That could very well amount to something. Even if it doesn’t, we can run a cable from it to the vircator to power that up, or to capture the energy of one of the plasma bolts if that thing fires at the stun gun instead of the vircator. Aside from that, they had about eight liters of assorted chemical compounds that Lieutenant Watanabe was drooling over. The building blocks to a new tomorrow.”
Watanabe blushed. “We have many options available to us with the chemicals.”
Rimes looked from his team to Duke. “Freeze it, shock it, or hit it with an EMP. Where do you want to start?”
Duke frowned. “With the freezer, I believe. Take three of my people. They will need to get those crates and whatever other materials they can find down in that bug’s lair to seal the chamber entries. Does it need to be airtight?”
“The closer the better,” Watanabe said. “There were bonding compounds in the inventory. We can use those to create a seal.”
Duke looked at Rimes. “Do you have any explosives left?”
Rimes shook his head. You wouldn’t be alive to lord it over us if we had. “We can search that lair. Maybe the ADMP team brought something we could use? I’m sure the Commandos had some.”
“I could create some compounds that will at the very least give the sense of an explosion.” Watanabe looked at Rimes hopefully. “The noise, the heat, and bursts of light—that sort of thing?”
“I can’t imagine that would hurt.” Rimes looked at Duke. “It must have some sort of physical awareness, even if it’s just through our senses. We’ll see what we can find off the corpses as well.”
“We just need enough to collapse the chamber’s lower passage.” Once again, Duke tried to come off indifferent but failed.
Meyers scowled. “Wait. If we’ve got enough explosives to collapse a passage, why not just try to blow one of the walls out up here and make a run for it now?”
Duke crossed his arms and smiled derisively. “Because you wouldn’t make it out of the crater without my protection, and I intend to see this through to the end.”
Meyers gave Rimes an annoyed look. “Yeah, we figured the deal would be something along those lines. We’ll take Munoz with us too, make sure we have enough eyes not to miss anything in your little bug lair.”
Careful of the tangled web. As Meyers gathered his team, Rimes took in the others. Fontana still stood in between the human and genie gatherings, belonging to neither, looking hopefully at both. She seemed comfortable with her isolation, almost at peace. Not far from her, Andrea stood on the edge of the remaining genies, staring at Rimes. Their eyes met for a moment; she refused to look away. It was finally Rimes who did, turning to watch Meyers’s team descend down the ramp.
As Munoz’s head disappeared down the hole, Rimes turned to Duke. “I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now, how is it you knew about this thing?”
“I told you, the records aboard the Erikson were quite damning. This structure held great promise for them.”
“Not the structure.” No squirming out from under this one. Rimes rubbed at his scar. “The thing. The construct. You’ve been saying it was a weapon, but I don’t believe everyone felt that way.”
“I can assure you, Captain, ADMP had every hope they were on the verge of acquiring a weapon.” Duke’s confidence was sincere and complete.
“What about you? When did you realize it was a weapon?”
For the second time since they’d met, Duke took Rimes’s measure. Finally, he smirked. “When I sensed its power. When I realized it was far more than we could hope to control. Here—isolated, remote, surrounded by desolation—it is at its weakest. Out there, among the stars, among humans or us, it would find prey, and it would feed. And grow. Ultimately, it would consume—subsume—everything. That is its design and purpose.”
“So when was that? I mean exactly. Just how long have you known?” Rimes glanced at the stasis device; Duke followed the glance. “The Commando shuttle had a frame fit into it like nothing I’d ever seen before, the same size as that stasis device. It had some pretty unique fittings. I’m betting if I went over there right now, I’d recognize the fittings.”
Duke said nothing. He simply stared at Rimes, the slightest hint of dubiety played across pales features, but only for a moment.
“Those fast attack craft you came here in, they had something j
ust like the commando shuttle had. Same size, same fittings, same clamps.”
After an eternity, Duke closed his eyes and sighed. “We had hoped it may be a brother, one we could reach out to. We could teach it what we knew and it could teach us what it knew. There was debate. In the end, it was agreed we would determine its nature and go from there. I have determined its nature.”
“What if you haven’t?”
Duke’s brow furrowed, and he straightened. “You think it offers peace and wisdom, welcoming us with gifts of kindness? You are an intelligent and resourceful man, Captain, but despite everything you have experienced, you are still just a man.”
“What if you’re wrong about what you think you know? You think you know how it operates and I’m sure you do. But it hasn’t touched you, not like it did Sheila. She seems to see it differently than you do. Why?”
Duke shrugged indifferently. “She has her limits.”
Rimes rubbed at the scar again. He thought of the distance separating him from Molly and the boys and of all he’d lost and the risk ahead of those still alive. Just a moment of transparency, Duke. That’s all I’m asking for. “Okay, one last try. What if what you know is what it wants you to know? What if it sensed your thoughts, maybe even your suspicions, and planted new thoughts in your mind? What if it filled in the blanks until you began to refer to questions as if they were answers?”
“I would sense such manipulation.” Duke’s eyes narrowed until only a thin sliver of pupil and iris remained. “I do have some experience in these matters.”
“How can you know, though? How can you possibly know what you think you’ve taken from it is real? If it can weaken the rest of us by preying on our doubts and fears, feeding our dreams and amplifying our nightmares, why couldn’t it turn you around, twist your thinking, manipulate you into doing the wrong thing by telling you what you wanted to hear?”
Duke smiled, his supreme self-confidence rising once again. “You failed to withstand its manipulations because you lacked faith. I do not. My will is supreme and cannot be undone through manipulation. Look at what I have done. My people now stand ready to destroy this thing that has threatened the galaxy for eons.”
Rimes held up a hand. “Our people. And if you’re wrong, if that thing has somehow deceived you, our people are at risk.”
“I am not wrong. You must trust me.”
How many soldiers have died trusting misguided leaders? And yet, we don’t really have a choice. Either we trust you, or we succumb to this thing.
Assuming we haven’t already, and this is nothing but an illusion.
45
30 October, 2167. Fourth planet of the COROT-7 system.
* * *
Rimes shivered slightly, but it wasn’t because of the cold leaking through the cases piled at the passage entry or the thin layer of ice coating the vircator and the electrical gun behind him. It was because conflict was imminent.
Humans and genies huddled interspersed just inside the passage. They struggled to maintain resolve, to find strength in their numbers. They gently bumped into each other in the cramped space, deriving warmth and reassurance from the contact. Their breath echoed hollowly and misted, a fog rising in the lamplight and fading from sight in the darkness. Their odors intermingled, until there wasn’t a distinct genie and human divide, just the living hoping to go on a little longer.
Standing at the rear, Duke drew in deep, steady breaths, his eyes closed. Three of the genies stood in front of him, their eyes also closed, their arms flexed in front of them. Fontana stood in front of the concentrating genies, peacefully smiling at Rimes. Some of the innocence he’d grown used to was gone from her eyes.
Peaceful. That’s a new look for her.
Rimes stepped toward her, hoping to make sense of her calm in the face of such power.
Fontana closed her eyes slowly as he approached. “They’ve attained a level of synergy that’s really quite remarkable.” She looked at him, and her eyes glowed a dazzling, diamond-like silver. “In a way, I’m envious.”
Rimes looked into the diamond depths of her eyes and shivered again. “No one’s going to say a thing if you choose to go with them when all’s said and done.”
“I wish I had your faith in the resolution. I can’t help feeling none of us are going to make it out of here alive.”
Rimes patted her hand. “I think it’s in our nature to believe in something. It used to dominate our lives. What’s the harm in a little faith?”
“In our nature? Human nature?” Fontana’s smile turned sad.
Duke coughed. “We are ready, Captain.”
Rimes released Fontana’s hand. “I don’t think humans and genies are so different that it matters. Do you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he turned and made his way through the huddled forces until he was once again at the front. A quick turn and he was eye-to-eye with those in the front row. He gave a reassuring thumbs up to Watanabe and Sung, returned Meyers’s nod, then exchanged a fist bump with Munoz.
Munoz rolled his head, producing a loud pop in his neck. “Let’s light this fucker up, Captain!”
Rimes chuckled as he scanned the faces of those gathered with him, human and genie alike. “You know the plan. When we enter this chamber, I expect to find one very pissed off…thing. We’ve seen what it can do. We think we have the weapons to shut it down enough so Duke can finish it off. Getting those weapons into play is the key.
“Lieutenant Watanabe here has provided us with some pretty impressive fireworks. If you have one of her grenades, put it into play at the earliest possible opportunity. If you’re part of the stun gun or vircator teams, get those into position and get clear. We’ll need the stun gun to fire first. If you’re not with one of the teams, get into the chamber and disperse. Keep moving. Fire your weapons. We’re not worried about hitting it; we’re worried about noise, distractions. This thing isn’t without its limits. Let’s test those. If we work together, we have every chance of success.”
He waved two of the genies forward. They took up a position to his left, Munoz to his right. Rimes leaned against the crates.
“On three. One…two…three!”
The wall burst from the entry, sliding forward and accelerating down the ice-covered ramp. Rimes followed, doing everything he could to lead the charge. Munoz hurtled past, leaping on top of the sliding case wall. The others poured out, guns blazing, roaring in defiance.
Frozen, the fungus proved even slicker than before. Footing was tricky. Light from the hovering construct reflected off the ice-covered walls, turning the chamber into a shimmering, brilliant, blue gem. A sharp, pungent, chemical reek hung heavy in the air.
Rimes’s armor shielded him from the cold. He sealed his visor, leaving him largely unaffected by the chemicals. The ice, however, proved too much even for the specialized soles of his boots. He leapt for Munoz’s monstrous surfboard, slipping at the last moment and falling short. Hoping for the best, Rimes simply slid down the ramp.
At first, it seemed the freezing might have been a brilliant thought by the ADMP scientists. Although it had rendered the chamber nearly impossible to navigate, it also seemed to have slowed or disoriented the construct.
But then the construct’s light matrix flared and began pulsing like an angry sun.
Munoz rolled off the crate wall, roaring a taunting laugh, just as a bolt of plasma leapt out from the construct. The plasma turned the first two rows of the crate wall into bubbling sludge. Munoz tumbled across the icy ground, firing his carbine and shouting curses.
A second bolt leapt from the light matrix and touched him, lifting him from the ground and depositing his charred form two meters away.
The blackened corpse emitted a long, dry gasp that momentarily shook Rimes’s resolve.
Two genies fell next, the first just after throwing one of Watanabe’s improvised explosives. The grenade’s deafening pop and phantasmagoric lights had no discernible effect on the construct.
Rimes
threw his hands out as he approached the ramp base, hoping to slow his slide toward the construct. In his head, Munoz’s death played out over and again. Rimes couldn’t stop wondering how quick death came when a body was superheated and whether the sounds coming from the bodies were just a reaction to the heat long after death or the best the ruined body could do when the dying needed to scream in agony.
His skid slowed, but not until he was almost directly underneath the construct. Blinding plasma leaped from it, there one moment, gone the next, and someone on the ramp died.
Rimes was heading for the shallow pool, now frozen. He twisted and shoved a foot out to stop his momentum, but when it hit the rim, the ice shattered, and the rim gave way.
He slid, then fell. Not shallow! Deep enough to fall into!
As his butt slipped over the edge, Rimes rolled onto his stomach and dug his fingers through ice and fungus, desperately seeking purchase where he knew there wouldn’t be any. To his surprise, where the fungus gave way beneath his raking fingers, it revealed cracks in the surface of the material. Rimes scraped, and his fingers found traction.
He came to a stop chest-deep in the hole. His wounded rib throbbed, his injured knee ached, but he was able to hold his position.
A glance above and he had a sense of the attack’s horrible cost. Along with Munoz, four genies were down, their bodies giving off fine wisps of steam in the frozen chamber. Two genies were helping Meyers position the vircator, a third was helping Sung and Watanabe with the stun gun. Fontana slowly descended the ramp, entranced. Echoes of gunfire and explosions filled the chamber while smoke from Watanabe’s makeshift explosives drifted to the ceiling above.
The cold, the fireworks, the gunfire—none of it seemed to be distracting the construct, at least not enough to stop the slaughter.
Another bolt of plasma was unleashed, striking down the genie closest to Meyers. Meyers locked eyes with Rimes and tensed. The weapons were ready.
For an instant, Rimes thought of giving the order to fire. He was thinking as a commander who wanted nothing more than for his unit to survive and bring an end to the battle. Another part of him—the strategist who realized he wasn’t fighting just one enemy but two—made him hold back the order.