by C. G. Hatton
She leaned close as I wriggled into place and hacked into the garrison’s control system.
“What are you doing?” she said as she watched.
I was scanning quickly through a sitrep. The AI was struggling. It was never expected to operate at the level it was currently being expected to. Kheris was a backwater, low threat rating. A full on assault on multiple targets was never considered in the possible scenarios it should have to deal with and for eight years it had never really been tested. Right then it was struggling and its learning algorithms were desperately trying to update and adapt to the worsening situation. But things were changing faster than it could keep up with. I felt torn. I wanted more than anything right then for the garrison to hold out and I didn’t want to screw the AI up and risk tipping the balance but there was only one way out that I could think of.
“Finding us a way through,” I muttered.
“What happened with Dayton’s key?”
“Dayton’s dead,” I said as I worked. “He’s been betraying us.”
I felt her tremble.
“You killed him?”
“Calum killed him. Dayton’s been working with the Empire this whole time. And at the end, he was even trying to sell them out to UM.”
“Why?”
“Money.” I didn’t mention that I’d transferred it all to her. If we survived this, she’d find out.
I could almost feel the next question brewing before she asked it. “What about Benjie?”
“Same? I dunno.” I was trying not to care. “You were right, he was just using me.” I shifted my weight, pain flaring in my knee. “Listen, Spacey was evacuated. Peanut’s waiting for us with a ship. I want you to come with us.”
She was staring at me. She didn’t say anything else but I could tell her mind was running at a million miles an hour. She went to speak a couple of times but stopped herself, finally just snapping Charlie’s band off her wrist and back onto mine and keeping her hand there.
I gave the AI a few more problems to worry about, no need to screw with the power, half of it was out already. I did what I could, winging it to figure out a way down the levels, and wrapped up fast. My hands were shaking by the time I was done. We could hear the Imperial forces, distant sounds echoing as they tried to reach us, breaking in and shouting, hammering on the hatches and yelling warnings to stop or they’d open fire.
“Come on,” I said, “we need to find the lift shaft.”
I was reckoning that was our best bet to get down to the lower levels. I’d never tried it before.
I led the way, climbing through and squeezing past the thick knots of cable to get up into the comms centre where the lift shaft ended. That was the only way we could get in – get above it and drop down.
I found the access panel I was looking for and leaned in close to release the catch.
“Won’t it know we’re here?” Maisie whispered.
It. The AI.
“It’s busy.”
There was a chance it would but I’d sent enough conflicting reports and queries to it, in amongst all the damage reports and sitreps it was getting, that it wouldn’t know what was what. It was trying to maintain the perimeter. It was holding. Just.
There was a clang and a hatch above us was ripped open.
I glanced up. A figure in powered armour burst in, flinging the hatch cover aside and roaring.
Maisie grabbed me and pulled me away as shots pinged off a pipe next to me. Steam hissed. I flinched back, shouldered the access panel open and pushed her through.
The air in the shaft was stale, cold. We clambered in, more shots hitting the walls around us. I risked reaching back, snatching the hatch shut behind us and flinching from shards of flying metal. It shut with a clang.
Maisie coughed, looking over my shoulder, hanging onto the ladder and leaning out, looking down. She swore. “Can you do this?” she breathed into my ear.
Dim lighting illuminated the shaft. The next access panel was half way down. I could just about see the top of the elevator at the bottom. My knee was throbbing again. I had no idea if I could make it but I nodded. “Race you to that panel.”
She went and didn’t look back. I ended up half falling down each rung of the ladder, balancing on my right leg and taking my weight on my arms. I had an increasing tickle at the back of my throat, a catch in my lungs that I knew was electrobes.
It was tough going. There was a sudden hum below me. I looked down. The lift was moving up, the noise from the mechanism getting louder. I wasn’t going to make it. There was a clatter from above, pieces of panel went crashing past me and the entire lift shaft resounded with a deafening rattle of gunfire. Maisie started yelling. I dropped down a couple more rungs, trying to stay small and trying to move faster than my leg would let me. Something hot hit my hand with a burst of pain. I lost my grip and fell.
Chapter 25
I tumbled, curled up and hit the top of the elevator as it rose to meet me. I hit it hard, breath driven from my lungs, shots punching down all around me. I scrambled to the side and crouched there, on the rising lift, flinching each time a shot came close, watching the access panel approach, feeling blood dripping off my hand, and clambered through as Maisie grabbed me, snatching my trailing foot out of the way as the lift continued on its way. She slammed the panel closed and held me, and we sat there clutching each other until I could breathe again.
“You’re bleeding,” she whispered.
I held out my hand, shaking. There was a ragged hole through it, oozing red. She pulled a cloth out of somewhere and bound it tight. I could hardly feel it. Charlie’s band was tingling, numbers scrolling across its surface. I stifled a cough.
Maisie was struggling not to cough herself. “This is electrobes, isn’t it?”
“Just ignore it,” I whispered back. “If it gets that bad, we’ll have to find some antidote somewhere.”
She looked at me wide-eyed like I was mad.
“It never gets that bad,” I lied. “Come on, we need to move. Stay close.”
We climbed out and into the crawl space above the command level. There was a constant humming reverberation from the power plant and the AI core below us that was setting my nerves on edge.
I led her around to a vent and we slipped down, squeezing our way through, feeling the temperature go up and the noise increase. It seemed like madness to drop further down into the base but it was the only thing I could come up with. If we tried to run and make a break for the surface, they’d get us.
We squeezed through conduits from one crawl space to another until we were above the power plant, every inch tough going. I didn’t care that I was leaving bloody handprints everywhere. The walls of the vent were vibrating, every noise banging through my head.
Maisie grabbed my arm. “You okay?”
I shook my head. My knee and my hand were hurting so bad the pain was making my stomach queasy. I fumbled in my pocket for the injector I’d lifted from the medic, almost dropping it, my hands were shaking that much. She took it from me and pressed it gently against my neck. It activated with a sting.
It was tempting to hold onto her and just sit there, rest my head against her shoulder and close my eyes.
She squeezed my left hand. “We need to go.”
We dropped down into a dark corridor. Somewhere along the way, Maisie grabbed a length of bar and gave it to me to lean on. I shouldn’t have taken the brace off my knee. She was holding me up and we half ran, half limped through the power plant, squeezing past cables and pipes, making our way through the open blast doors that separated each compartment, the noise so loud we didn’t hear him come up behind us. A grenade clattered past, rolling, what light there was glinting off its surface. Maisie dropped me and ran right towards it, twisting and kicking it away. My leg gave way and I sprawled, seeing a looming figure in powered armour behind us as the grenade went spinning off, detonating with a flash. Stun grenades are nasty. Even catching the edge of it sent sparks flaring behind
my eyes.
Maisie cursed and pulled me up and back into a stumbling run. I could hear him pounding up behind us.
We ran through the next blast door and I gasped, “Wait,” pushing her to the side as I punched down on the door panel. He opened up on us, shots pinging past us down the corridor. I hunkered in close, shielding her and flinching as bullets ricocheted off the wall next to us. One of the thick overhead conduits above us exploded, a sickly green glow of steam and vapour showering down as the door slammed shut. It felt like I was inhaling lungfuls of tiny, razor sharp, superheated pins. The band on my wrist started vibrating like it was about to explode. Maisie was coughing. I pulled off the door panel and yanked out wires, shorting out the controls and glancing back through the sealed air-tight door as the massive figure thundered up and started to pound on it with his armoured fist.
There was a manual release. I saw him reaching for it, grabbed the bar and stuck it through the handle on our side, jamming it tight. It would hold, but not for long.
I turned.
Maisie was doubled over.
“Luka, go,” she gasped.
“I’m not leaving you,” I muttered, grabbed her arm and pulled her up and forward. Another conduit overhead exploded in a shower of sparks and green vapour. We ran through it, stumbling towards the next blast door. A siren started screaming, emergency lights flashing red. I could see the warning lights, hear the mechanism whirr. Flares of light were flickering across my eyes. We couldn’t move fast enough. My knee gave way. Maisie pushed me before I could stop her. I stumbled forward and fell.
The door slammed closed.
I got to my knees and turned, cold. She was on the other side. I could see her on the floor. The alarm was still shrieking. I shouted and screamed, pounding at the door and the release panel but it wouldn’t open.
It felt like I’d been kicked in the chest. I couldn’t let it happen again.
I turned and ran.
There was only one way I could get that door to open. I could hardly breathe and that was nothing to do with the electrobe poisoning. I found a maintenance hatch, bust it open with trembling fingers that were slick with blood and worked my way through and down, falling as much as climbing, an icy vein of panic clutching at my stomach. The band around my forearm was still vibrating with what I guessed was a warning that the electrobe concentration was bad enough to be beyond shit.
The level housing the AI core was quieter, the droning hum of the power plant above just a distant reverberation. I made my way through it, running on pure adrenaline. They couldn’t track me down there. There’s so much interference around an AI, there was no way they could have tracked the lifesigns of a horde of invaders. I saw a bunch of technicians in environment suits but it wasn’t hard to avoid them.
I didn’t have much of a plan, and from the burning in my chest I didn’t have much time, but it didn’t need any finesse. All AI cores, even the old ones, are protected from meltdowns and outside attack. That’s why they’re usually buried so deep. No one ever anticipated someone being stupid enough to climb into one though.
I found the interface that led to the main manifold for the cooler system surrounding the core, hacked open the control panel and slipped inside.
The sound was deafening. My heart was beating in time with the thrumming din. The cables were pulsing. Tiny remote maintenance drones were buzzing around in all directions. I could feel the electrobes in every breath, every blink. My skin was crawling.
I reached out my left hand, fingers spread wide, and touched a conduit that was warm and soft.
This was a main artery that fed the thing that had killed Charlie. And now it was killing Maisie. I know there are places that recognise AIs as sentient. To me, it was a machine and it was programmed to be vicious and ruthless and murdering. I didn’t care whose side it was on. I knew what the consequences of what I was planning would be. With the AI gone, the whole base would be in chaos, the defence grid would be down and without the automated defences, the garrison would fall. You ever heard of the Kheris massacre? Well, that was all down to me. But right then I didn’t care. I’ve done a lot of stuff in my time with the guild, but that night…? It was either my best or my worst. All I wanted to do was get Maisie to safety.
I pulled out Charlie’s knife and gnawed away at the cables with the blade until I had enough bare wires exposed that they started to spark. The air around me erupted. I was knocked back and sent sprawling as the cables caught fire, the electrobes in the air flaring and dying with a flurry of brilliant light as it set off a chain reaction.
I can remember thinking that was probably enough.
Then the whole compartment blew.
I was thrown backwards. I curled up and shielded my head, fingers burned and nerve endings raw. Alarms were screaming, the sound distorted and far off. I crawled back to the interface, scrambled through and pushed myself to my feet.
And looked up into the sights of a hunter killer drone, right there, hovering at head height.
It was spinning, scanning round. It stopped, homed in on me, weapons bearing round, and shifted so fast, it was inches from my face before I could move.
There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. This was it. Its actuators were humming as it adjusted its aim, its laser targeting system shining red between my eyes. In all the times I’d raided the garrison, I’d never seen one active in there. They’d sent it after me.
I froze, waiting for the shot.
It backed up and dropped to chest height. I tensed, staring at it, chin up, defying it to kill me. An arc of fine blue beams speared out of it and danced over me, scanning. They focused in on the tags around my neck and shut off abruptly. The drone spun and shot off, hunting down the next life signs it could detect.
I reached for the chain, Charlie’s tags, and stood there like an idiot, staring after it, still not breathing and starting to tremble.
Another compartment inside the core blew. I was on my knees before I knew what was happening. The heat was immense. I covered my head and crawled through broken glass and shards of plastic that burned into my skin.
I made it to the hatch and climbed back up to the power plant.
The blast doors were closed, the conduits still spewing out green vapour. The alarm had changed to a wailing siren and an automated message calling for immediate evacuation. I hit the release button and that time there was no AI to countermand the instruction. The door opened.
Maisie was sitting with her eyes closed, head leaned forward against the wall. She wasn’t moving. I scrambled down next to her, a cold knot twisting in my stomach, but she twitched as I reached for her, swore and jerked upright, grabbing my arm.
She coughed.
The level was filling with smoke fast. There was a crash and a bang at the other door, yells. They were still trying to get through.
I pulled her up and we moved, both of us doubled over coughing, me limping and half blind with the pain. There was no way we had time to make it to the tunnel entrance. But there was another route. We were screwed anyway. I took her straight down through the burning AI core and into the substructure beneath the whole garrison. I couldn’t tell what was worse after a while, the heat, the pain in my knee and hand, the electrobes in my chest or that dull droning vibration that was almost subliminal in its intensity.
Whole compartments were collapsing around us. Sections blowing out. Pipes and conduits buckling. I don’t even know how we found the tunnel access but we dropped down into a chill, damp space and let the hatch slam shut above us, shutting out the heat and noise with a bang.
It opened out into a tunnel. The air was stale but breathable so there must have been some kind of ventilation.
Maisie was struggling to keep herself upright but she grabbed my arm and hoisted it over her shoulder, slipping the other around my waist again.
She made a choking gesture around her throat as we moved as fast as we could manage, and whispered, “I take it this is bad?”
I nodded. I coughed, chest hurting. If you’ve ever had electrobe poisoning beyond critical, you’ll understand how much it hurt. I didn’t know if my eyes were watering from the pain or the electrobes. The band on my forearm had stopped vibrating. It was just humming, constricted tight. I had a feeling that was a bad sign.
We could hear the explosions above us. Part of the tunnel ceiling up ahead started to rain dust and debris, the steel wall supports groaning, starting to bend.
We couldn’t move any faster. Maisie lost her balance and we stumbled, staggering, almost going down, desperately trying to hold each other up.
There was a noise way back in the tunnel. Distant voices echoed, a faint clatter of armour and weapons.
We turned, staring.
They were trying every possible way to get in, to get to us.
Another reverberating shockwave behind us sent dust flying past. I flinched and glanced back. The tunnel was going to collapse. We were going to be trapped and caught or buried alive. I didn’t know which would be worse.
Chapter 26
We didn’t stand there to wait and see. We turned and staggered back into a run, stumbling towards the collapsing section of tunnel.
The pressure against my chest was getting worse. I could feel Maisie getting heavier and heavier against my arm. Chunks of the tunnel lining were crashing down. We ducked falling concrete, clambered over rubble and dragged each other through the narrowing gap, tumbling and sprawling clear as the roof came down behind us in a billowing cloud of dust.
I pushed to my elbows and looked back. It was only partially blocked but there was no way they’d get through that easily in powered armour. And from what I knew of the plans, there was no other way in to this tunnel. They’d have to clear a way through to get to us.
Maisie coughed. She looked up at me, tears welling. She was shaking.