The Ascendant Stars

by Cobley, Michael

  By now the prisoner had slumped down, shoulders sagging, limbs jerking, his mouth drooling. The dog was a lifeless form laid out on the grass beside him. Then the prisoner was still for a moment before straightening, mouth wide in a bare-toothed grin as the tall prisoner cut his bonds, eyes full of a cold intelligence.

  Robert had to watch the vile subjugation another three times before his turn came. The seven Vor approached him, led by the ‘surgeon’ with his blade, while the last remaining dog glared hungrily. Fear choked his throat, filled his chest, and he tried to crawl away. But the dog leaped to block his path, slavering and snarling.

  Suddenly the dog jerked as its head sprouted a brass-coloured spike adorned with three small stabiliser fins. Its open jaws let out a high warbling sound before it pitched forward to spill blood on the ground. The other Vor crouched down, wary eyes scanning the surroundings for the source of the attack. The one nearest to Robert lunged in close to grab his leg and was about to drag him away when a second bolt struck the Vor in the back of the head, angled down. With a grating shriek, it sprawled on the ground, spasmed, and was still.

  The rest of the Vor scattered and ran. With an effort Robert sat upright and watched their forms recede into the mists. And suddenly he realised that the rumbling was back, a low continuous noise in the background. Then, closer, he heard a rapid, fluttery humming from above, with the sense that it was descending. Looking up, he was surprised to see the drone Reski Emantes slowing to hover a few feet above ground.

  Yet the machine was markedly different from before. Although of the same basic clamshell design, its construction looked cruder, heavier, with strip-reinforced seams around the shell rims and surface panels. A short-barrelled weapon protruded from the underside, presumably the source of the bolts. The most eyecatching change was the mode of propulsion, three propellers jutting from the upper shell while a side-mounted one acted as a stabiliser.

  ‘As you can see,’ the drone said, ‘I have been altered. Hands, please.’

  Robert held them up and a blade-tipped arm poked out of a tiny hatch to neatly sever his bonds. The blade then came loose, fell to the ground, and the metal arm folded back inside. Robert smiled as he picked up the blade, leaned over and freed his ankles.

  ‘Very steamcog,’ he said. ‘What’s the power source? – cells?’

  ‘Half my interior is full of them, curious glass valves full of white vapour and metal coils. At least I don’t have a smokestack poking out of me.’

  Robert got to his feet and nodded. ‘The meta-quantal environment must have modified you in accordance with some pattern … ’

  ‘You should leave such speculation till later,’ the drone said. ‘The source of that rumbling noise is heading this way.’

  Robert paused – yes, it was definitely louder and now coming from a particular direction, the end of the bushy vale from which the Vor and their hosts had come.

  ‘Can you see what it looks like?’ he said.

  ‘My sensors have been reduced to a crude radar,’ Reski Emantes said acidly. ‘All I can say is that it is gigantic and will soon pass this way. I suggest that you start running.’

  The drone’s props tilted and it glided away towards the other side of the vale. Taken by surprise, Robert broke into a jog and went after the drone only to find that it was still pulling away from him. He lengthened his stride, picked up the pace and soon found himself running across a pebbly strand. Ahead, the drone flew over a shallow stream and on through a gap in the trees that lined the other side. And by now the grinding rumbling was loud enough to drown out his breathing and the sound of his running feet.

  The mist was thick and the rumbling was near-deafening by the time he reached the gap in the tree line. Beyond it, the trees were tall and the undergrowth thick, and through the mist he could just see a winking yellow light and hear a voice: ‘Be swift, Robert Horst!’

  He almost didn’t make it. As he darted and wove between the trees, the rumbling made the ground shake and the air feel as if it was buzzing in his lungs. Engulfed in the thunderous roar of it, he saw a tree off to the right start to topple, then one to his left, then another directly ahead that brought down two in a domino effect. The ground itself started to feel spongy and unstable and up ahead he could see the drone, Reski Emantes, signal light winking, some way up a steep rocky incline. Then he lost his footing.

  He sprawled, hands scraping as he tried to break his fall, and a tree slammed down directly in front of him. Spattered in grime and mud, he regained his feet, grabbed a branch and clambered over the fallen trunk, leaped down and plunged onwards. As the trees thinned out the ground rose steeply to the incline, natural stepped formations of mossy rock up which he started to laboriously climb. But only for the first three steps. The vibrations in the rock made it impossible to get a firm grip and the roar was so overwhelming that all he could do was curl up away from the brink of the ledge he was on, with hands clamped over his ears. And amid the shattering chaos of noise a great cold shadow swept over everything, swallowed all in a veil of murk before, finally, it rolled past, an immense wheel, perhaps a hundred feet high, built from dark wood and rough metal. In the heavy mist its upper rim was veiled, but on the ground it crushed boulders to rubble and trees to matchwood. Then it was followed by another vast wheel, and a third, and a fourth. The shadows and the mists swirled and closed around it as it passed.

  If the wheels are that massive, he thought, how big is the thing that rides on them? … and if we are wandering in some part of the Godhead’s subconscious, then what does that symbolise? What can it mean?And is there any possibility of negotiating with a sentience like this?

  KAO CHIH

  Out of a stretched dream of cloudy faces he drifted up to wakefulness, prompted by voices, the Shyntanil attendants’ voices. There seemed to be undertones of what passed for excitement among that desiccated species.

  ‘ … a moonshard against … them? The Ghost Gods? – a hard thing to dare … ’

  ‘The Highest has commanded it – their interference is disrupting His plans.’

  ‘But this cause we must make with the Suneye machineries – brings hazard … ’

  ‘Yah, hazard for them! You know how Old Irontooth thinks. Once the Ghost Gods’ refuge is smashed, the Suneyes will be … blinded! … ’

  The deck lurched slightly, then more severely as a grating alarm sounded.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Battle call! – Battle!’

  The Shyntanil attendants rushed off as the cryptship quivered from external attacks. Kao Chih suddenly realised that his drug vials had not been replenished. But when he peered at them he saw that both were still about a quarter full and he could feel the body-drowse coming on again – just as a massive impact somewhere sent a violent shock through the deck, slamming Kao Chih’s framework sideways in its recess. Something snapped … and his left arm came free, at least enough to move it across his chest.

  Fighting the rising languor, he knew he might not have long before he was overwhelmed by what was already in his veins. So he reached over and loosened the strap on his right arm then proceeded to extract the needle from his left arm and carefully scraped the needle tip against the dirt-streaked metal framework, trying to stop it up with dust and grime. He then stabbed the tip against the frame to crush or bend it, and gingerly re-inserted it. By now he was yawning and struggling to keep his eyelids from drooping but he managed to repeat the process with the other side, refasten his right arm strap and adjust the left one to hold the arm up before letting himself relax. Despite the shaking and jolting it was the easiest thing to close his eyes and drift off …

  He awoke to a silence broken by the sibilance of breathing sleepers. His senses felt sharper, as did his mind. The vials looked almost full yet there was no numbness. Releasing his arms, he retracted the needles and saw a gummy buildup around the tips. That was when he realised that the occupant opposite had been replaced – with a Human. He was a brown-skinned man and the tor
n remnants of his outer garments suggested a uniform of some kind, dark blue. Drugged, he hung there, immobile, insensible.

  Kao Chih lost no time in tackling his restraints, unscrewing, unclamping and unfastening himself from head to toe. On stepping out of the framework the first thing he saw was the other Humans held captive and comatose in the neighbouring recesses, as well as one further along to either side. Stunned, he observed the mix of genders and the variety of characteristics before he noticed something else, a faint clicking and rattling. Tracing it to some way along the passage, he crept nervously towards it, edging slowly up to where he could peer round into one particular recess …

  A thin, white-haired, wrinkle-faced elderly man was trying to loosen one of the arm straps. He paused and glanced up.

  ‘Good day,’ he said. ‘Would you know how often our gracious hosts make their rounds?’

  Taken aback slightly, Kao Chih said, ‘Every eight hours … I think … ’

  ‘Good. In the meantime could I trouble you for some assistance?’

  ‘I would be most happy to oblige,’ he said, quickly stepping up to tend to the various restraints. Moments later he helped the old man out of the recess then gave a respectful bow.

  ‘My name is Kao Chih, pilot and emissary.’

  ‘Are you, indeed? – I seem to recall mention of a Kao Chih being involved in an incident on Darien, something about an antique drone trying to gain entry to an old Forerunner installation … ’

  Kao Chih stared. ‘How could you know about that?’

  The elderly man shrugged. ‘In addition to my tasks aboard the Heracles, I was also carrying out observations on behalf of the Construct, who I believe you have heard of.’

  Kao Chih smiled hesitantly. ‘I have. Is it possible that the Construct will send someone to rescue us?’

  ‘If it could do so, I would be the agent assigned to such a delightful job.’ He held out a skinny hand. ‘My name is Robert, by the way.’

  Robert’s grasp was cool, dry and surprisingly firm. As they shook hands, Kao Chih mulled over what he had said.

  ‘Do you have any idea of where this ship is heading?’

  ‘They definitely seemed to have a destination in mind but they kept it to themselves.’ Robert looked around with an air of amiable interest. ‘Well, this does look like a most specific kind of predicament, I must say. But with your skills I imagine that we’ll be free and away in no time.’

  ‘I don’t know that I have much in the way of skills that would help us here,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, but this is a pivotal predicament, Kao Chih. For all these people this situation is literally life and death, wouldn’t you say?’ He gestured at the Humans in the recesses. ‘But there is also the matter of the sizeable asteroid that this cryptship is propelling up the hyperspace tiers, aided by a vessel of the Suneye Monoclan … ’

  Kao Chih felt a chill. ‘The Suneye? These Shyntanil are working with them to move an asteroid?’ Then he remembered. ‘I overheard something … those Shyntanil attendants talked of a moonshard that is going to be used against some adversary called the Ghost Gods.’

  Robert nodded thoughtfully. ‘Hmm, that is audacious. The Ghost Gods were one of the Forerunners’ staunchest allies, a skilful species which fought relentlessly against anti-sentient influences and other tyrants. They survived the collapse of the Forerunner civilisation and have endured the passage of millennia by concealing or altering themselves. Today they are known as the Roug and reside in the Buzrul system … does this surprise you, Kao Chih?’

  ‘I knew that the Roug’s ancestors were involved with the Forerunner alliance … So the Shyntanil and Suneye vessels are going to Buzrul to try to destroy their orbital city, Agmedra’a?’

  ‘That or strike at the cities hidden in the cloudy depths of the nearby gas giant, V’Hrant.’

  Kao Chih tried to order his thoughts around this grim news. ‘What can we do to prevent this?’

  ‘We already tried, my shipmates and I.’ Robert indicated the quiescent Humans in their cages. ‘You see, roughly half a ship-day ago we dispatched a Construct agent on a mission into stranger realms than I would ever wish to tread, and it was soon after that we encountered this vessel and the Suneye one. Hoping to disable or destroy either or both, we mounted an assault … ’

  ‘I remember the impacts and the alarms,’ he said. ‘So your attack failed.’

  ‘Even with some radical upgrades, courtesy of myself, the Heracles could not prevail. We slowed them down but couldn’t seriously damage either of them and the Shyntanil were quick to launch boarding parties … ’ The older man shrugged. ‘And here we are. Now, I have to make a reckoning of the survivors so while I’m doing that I should like you to hurry around the main bulkheads and look for anything resembling a deck plan. The layout of a cryptship is always the same and the sooner we narrow down our whereabouts the sooner we can get organised.’

  ‘How did you come to be so familiar with such vessels?’ Kao Chih said.

  Smiling, Robert tapped the side of his head. ‘Some surprising things stored up here. Let’s get busy, shall we?’

  Kao Chih hurried off on his task, thoughts full of fearful anticipation yet sharpened by the hope that the elderly Robert knew what he was doing. The storage bay with its rows of narcotised prisoners was a chilling place in both senses of the word. By the time he found the map, on a semi-corroded plaque halfway along the second wall of the bay that he came to, he was trembling from the cold. The lettering and the symbols were meaningless but it was definitely a floorplan, as Robert confirmed when he came to view it. He took one look, smiled and pointed to a pair of symbols in the lower corner.

  ‘Deck 18 – good! That places us directly above one of the auxiliary launch bays, which is where they keep the assault craft.’

  Kao Chih’s eyes widened. ‘We’ll be escaping in them?’

  ‘In just one. They can each carry thirty fully armed Shyntanil boarding troops, whereas we have twenty-three Humans to accommodate, including you and me.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Twenty-one survivors from the Heracles, although there could be more in the other body bays, maybe even Velazquez … but it would be far too risky to stray into the upper decks. No, we must play to the few advantages that we have.’

  ‘Master Robert, we must warn the Roug!’ Kao Chih said. ‘We need to reach them first.’

  ‘Indeed, and to do so we’ll have to hamper our host’s progress somehow … but leave that to me.’

  Kao Chih nodded. ‘So is there a way down to this launch area, and how can we carry so many unconscious people?’

  ‘My dear Kao Chih, who said anything about carrying? All our fellow Humans are already equipped with wheels, at least the frameworks that hold them are. As for access, there is a secondary cargo elevator … ’ He pointed to the end of the bay bulkhead. ‘ … over there. I’ve started disconnecting the drug tubes so can you finish that while I investigate the elevator and check the launch bay in case there are any Shyntanil about. There shouldn’t be – most of the crew will be in their restoration cabinets, but I’d like to be sure.’

  Kao Chih went about his new task with alacrity, going from recess to recess, carefully removing the needles which he then pushed into the bungs in the vials to prevent any spillage. Once that was completed, he began moving the Human crew over to the elevator corner of the bay, starting with those furthest away. Every now and then he would pause, his jittery senses alert for anything that sounded like the Shyntanil guards returning. He was lining up the fourth crewman against the bulkhead when the elevator arrived with a deep engine noise and stained corrugated doors slid open. Robert limped out, smiling.

  ‘Good work, Kao Chih,’ he said. ‘We may well be ready to leave within an hour.’

  ‘Did you injure yourself, Master Robert?’ he said, suddenly concerned. ‘Was anyone there?’

  ‘There was one tech working on some kind of assembly,’ Robert said, as if it was a small matter. ‘He threw a canister at me but
I knocked him out with a heavy tool from his bench. So now that it’s all clear down there we can get busy without interference.’

  Kao Chih nodded eagerly, and only allowed himself to frown when he was walking back along the aisle to collect another sleeping Human.

  The transfer of their charges from the body bay to the launch bay went smoothly. Kao Chih’s first sight of the latter did not impress him especially – it was a high, rectangular chamber about sixty yards long and twenty across with three berths along one side, each containing an assault craft. In design it was a dark-hulled, heavily armoured personnel carrier whose broad prow resembled the hooked beaks of a pair of predators. Along the other side were a dozen large doors half the height of the launch bay. The launch access, Robert said, was beneath the deck and led to pressure doors in the underhull.

  They managed to pack sixteen insensible Humans into the elevator on the first run. Down in the launch bay they were wheeled over to the middle berth, where Kao Chih got busy releasing them from their upright cages. In the meantime the grey-haired Robert went back up to fetch the rest, and soon after his return all the crew were released and sitting or lying along the side of the berth. Robert set to work on the assault craft’s main hatch codepad, leaving Kao Chih to check on the well-being of the survivors. A few were starting to come round and were just about able to stand unaided but the others remained drugged and oblivious. And as he checked pulses and breathing, Kao Chih noticed amongst the clutter of a rear-wall workbench the distinctive shape of the grip of a handweapon. Glancing round, he reached over to pick it out of the mess and found it to be a heavy grey gun with a triangular muzzle. Quickly he slipped it inside his shirt, wedging its cold metal form into his waistband.