Protocol 7 at-1

by Armen Gharabegian

  Phit! Phit! Phit-phit-phit! Hundreds of lights were striking the Spector, slamming against the shielded surface, sounding like a barrage of stones. Everyone ducked as Max stopped the Spector instantly and spun his chair away from the line of fire.

  The front-facing camera that had served them so well sizzled and went black. Tiny bumps, reverse dimples, appeared in sudden lines stitching across the cabin as the bullets dented the smartskin but did not penetrate.

  Not yet, anyway, Max thought.

  Max knew the sound of gunfire all too well. He rotated his seat to face the crew, cowering all across the bridge, and started to move the Spector in reverse, backing away from the gunfire, moving toward the approaching Spiders. For a moment the transparent aft walls stayed transparent, and he saw the gleaming arms of the CS-23 sway and grip one more time, and then the transparency flickered away, and he was staring at a blank interior wall.

  Phit! PHIT phit PH-ph-PHIT!

  Samantha clapped her hands over her ears and screamed. Max could see that Andrew and Ryan were only a step behind her.

  It felt like an ambush-foot soldiers to the front, heavy artillery at the rear. But why waste men? Max wondered. They could just set off a couple of grenades and block us in without exposure.

  Phit PHIT PHITPHITPHITPHIT-

  The deepscan holos sizzled and disappeared under the continuing assault. The bridge was little more than a hollow shell now-and one that was starting to crack under the relentless hail of bullets.

  “What’s going on?” screamed Samantha as Simon threw himself from his seat and jumped half the length of the cabin to throw his arms around her. He had never felt so helpless: caught between the menacing machines in one direction, a barrage of gunfire in another, a thousand feet below the killing ice.

  Death-the real, imminent, tangible specter of Death-flashed before his eyes as he tried to comfort her. Hayden, doubled over in the tiny space below the tech console, bellowed through the noise of the thunderous bullets as the last of the Spector’s emergency lights blinked out. “They hit the main electric panel!”

  But the Spector kept moving. Just as Max had directed, it staggered in reverse, away from the gunfire, back toward the robots, foot after stubborn foot-

  — until it smashed into something huge, immovable, and utterly invisible, just beyond the buckling metal hull.

  The team was thrown across the darkened cabin as the vehicle shuddered to an instant halt. The pounding bullets didn’t even pause; if anything, the rattling tattoo of the attack grew even louder, more angry, as the soldiers approached and redoubled their fire.

  The next few seconds felt like an eternity as Max scrambled to find his pistol. Simon asked Samantha in a quiet whisper, “You all right?”

  “I’m not dead yet,” she whispered fiercely. “At least I don’t think I am.”

  “Down, guys!” Max shouted from the floor. “Unbuckle, get down!” He frog-marched to Andrew and helped him with the complex arrangement of belts. The left side of the bridge exploded in a shower of sparks. A new vibration, deep and almost subsonic, rumbled through the vessel. It seemed as though it was coming from the outside and getting stronger with every second. It was accompanied by a low hissing noise that sounded like an approaching eighteen-wheeler.

  Max grabbed Simon’s shoulder and said, “It’s zero time.” He saw Simon struggle with the words for a second; then a look of realization dawned on him. It was a bit of slang from their childhood, back when they only played at being spies and adventurers. It meant “now or never,” “do or die.” But it meant something more, too. It was a phrase only they used, and only with each other. It was part of a secret language that had made them more than friends from an early age.

  It meant, “Brothers forever.” It meant, “I will always have your back.”

  He grinned in spite of everything, and was surprised to feel burning tears in his eyes. “Zero time,” he said.

  Phit-PHIT! Ph-ph-ph-ph-PHIT!

  The subterranean vibration grew deeper, stronger. They could feel something approaching, like an army of horses stampeding straight for them.

  PHITPHITPHITPHITPHIT

  “We’re trapped!” screamed Hayden. “We can’t open the airlock without power!” And without power, they all knew, the heaters had stopped working, too. With every passing second, the temperature of the vessel was dropping, and with the seals still locked in place, the air was growing thin as well.

  The end? Simon asked himself. Cowering under a metal console, suffocating as he started to freeze? Not yet, he prayed, thinking of the people who had trusted him, thinking of his father. Not yet…

  And the gunfire stopped.

  In an instant; all at once. It didn’t trail off, or sputter to a halt, or simply pause and begin again. It stopped.

  The five-second silence that followed was absolutely deafening.

  Then, suddenly, inexplicably, a bank of harsh lights in the Spector’s ceiling blinked on, died, then blinked again and stayed on. The first thing Simon’s eyes fell on was an astonished Hayden, gaping at the ceiling from his hiding place.

  “Son of a bitch,” the inventor said into the cavernous silence. “Emergency back-ups. Completely forgot about those.”

  Even the smartskin flickered back to life, but only in bits and pieces. Simon found himself peering through transparent foot-square patches randomly scattered across at the front and side of the ships, into a craggy darkness illuminated by the skittering beams of the approaching robotic Spiders and the blue-green luminosity of the foot soldiers’ weapons, still glowing even as they approached the Spector.

  The rumbling grew louder. The vibration from below them shook the entire crippled vessel like a toy.

  Then a giant cycle-like vehicle with a large single wheel roared down the passageway, behind the foot soldiers. They ignored it as they moved forward, weapons still raised, but the bullets had stopped flying.

  The front lights of the large cycle were blinding; it made it hard to estimate distance or size. Andrew turned away momentarily from the brilliant light and saw Nastasia bent over almost doubled, sifting through her nutrition case again.

  She looked up at Simon, and he saw she was holding her inhaler in one hand and what seemed to be a pre-packed powder in the other. “I just…because of my condition I can’t live without this.” As he watched she pushed the inhaler into the kit, forced the lid shut and snapped it tight, then put it aside.

  They both turned and stood as the huge cycles accelerated toward them, skidding to a halt in unison almost a hundred yards away.

  Several figures, dressed in heavy gear to protect themselves from the bitter cold, started running toward the Spector. They were holding rifles, coming at the crippled vehicle like a SWAT team with laser-guided instrumentation. It was hard for Max to see them; the light source from the rifles themselves was shooting straight toward the Spector.

  Simon and Max had already moved to the door, prepared to protect the others if they had to. Max gestured with his pistol, waving toward the ready room and shouting at the rest of the crew. “Move toward the back.”

  Simon stood with his back pressed firmly against one side of the door, opposite Max. He looked across the bridge to Andrew, who was sitting in the crooked, half-broken pilot’s seat.

  “Shut her down,” he whispered.

  Max watched the approaching figures with every ounce of his concentration, calculating, gambling. His gut told him these men were somehow not connected to the menacing robots. He knew all too well how trained mercenaries would move, and these men with the rifles clearly did not move that way at all. They weren’t professional soldiers; he would bet his life on that.

  One man, face fully covered by a cloth and plastic mask, was ten steps ahead of the others. He was holding an unusual weapon, a rifle unlike any Max had ever seen, its stock pressed tightly against his chin. He was using the light on the weapon as a flashlight, trying to study the unusual surface of the Spector.

  More
men started approaching the vehicle, and Simon tried to count them. It looked as though there were eight or ten-it was hard to tell in the blinding, dancing lights.

  “Lay down,” whispered Max, as the team watched the scene unfold on the half-blind wall panels.

  Simon had reached the same conclusion. “Max, these guys don’t seem like they’re after us. They seem as scared as we are.” He couldn’t help but notice how the men were studying the Spector’s exterior in amazement. Not like soldiers at all. More like…

  “Let’s open the door,” he said impulsively.

  Samantha almost choked in fear as she tried to express herself. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Don’t think that will be the case,” Max said. “Just relax and lay down.”

  There was a sudden thud toward the front of the vehicle as one of the men smashed his rifle against the thick armor of the Spector. Inside, the team only heard a faint sound, but could clearly see the man trying to smash the exterior.

  “He has to stop that,” Hayden said. “The surface is still carrying a charge, he could-”

  Other white-clad gunmen attacked the hatch that Max had sealed only moments earlier. One had found a piece of torn metal he used to scrape and scratch at the smartskin; the other had an actual crowbar he was trying to insert in the tiny crack that outlined the hatchway.

  “They’re going to kill themselves!” Hayden said, jumping up in spite of Max’s orders. “The skin is still charged, it’ll electrocute them if-”

  “Andrew!” Simon screamed. “Open the fucking door to the outside hatch!”

  Simultaneously, Max bellowed at the others-a deep voice, a commander’s voice: “All of you into the ready room! NOW!”

  This time they moved, scrambling over each other for cover.

  The instant they were safely out of sight, the hatch began to shift and open, very slowly. Max turned and raised his pistol with the laser guidance system and pointed it straight at the hatch door.

  Simon stood flattened against the door, a two-foot piece of razor-sharp steel in his hand. It was the only weapon he had.

  They weren’t going to take any chances.

  And they sure as hell weren’t going to die today.

  THE PASSAGE

  There was no time to think. Everything happened in a matter of seconds.

  The door depressurized with a hiss, and the armed men outside moved back a pace, their rifles still high. The temperature isnside the Spector plunged as the arctic air invaded, rushing in with a crackling sound as everything that could freeze in an instant did exactly that. The only other sound was the ominous, rhythmic rush of heavy breathing through the masks that everyone wore, friend and foe alike.

  “Identify yourself!” shouted the man in front of the foot soldiers as the beams of light from the laser-guided rifles penetrated the Spector. The illumination created an eerie glow on the ice, on the dying instrumentation, on the flat glassy surfaces of masks and goggles.

  “We mean no harm,” Simon said loud enough to be heard but-he hoped-quiet enough to sound reasonable. He was still out of sight, his back pressed against the inside of the vehicle.

  The man standing just outside the hatch responded, “Show yourselves!”

  Simon knew this was his chance. Either he would be shot, or this would be the beginning of their journey. He looked at Max across the open hatch. His oldest friend nodded in silent agreement. Simon slowly turned and moved sideways into the open doorway, exposing himself to the enemy, first his hand, then the rest of his body with arms lifted and hands empty.

  He felt the chill of the tunnel as half a dozen laser-guided rifles moved to point straight at him. He squinted into the glaring lights and heard a voice ask him, “Who are you? You’re clearly not Vector5.”

  “Who’s Vector5?” he asked.

  Max, close behind and to one side, moved toward the door with his pistol up.

  “Drop your weapon!” screamed one of the men-not the one in front but one of the men behind him who was gripping his odd rifle so hard it trembled.

  Nervous, Max thought. Nervous men are dangerous. Very gently Max lowered his pistol and set it on the deck of the Spector. When he rose again, his empty hands were up and in front of him, fingers spread wide.

  The leader shouted again, “Identify yourself!”

  “We’re scientists,” Simon said, loudly and carefully. He wanted everyone to hear. “We’re not soldiers. We’re looking for my father.”

  For one long second, everything froze in place. Then the tip of the rifle held by the man in the lead slipped down. He gestured for the others to drop their weapons as well.

  Simon let out a tremendous sigh. He wasn’t even aware he’d been holding his breath. The lights from the robotic Spiders still cut through the tunnel, randomly illuminating the bodies of the men standing outside the Spector.

  As the man in the lead moved closer, Simon heard him ask another question through the filter of his mask, “Who did you say you were here for?”

  He was a tall and stocky gentleman with layers of clothing that made him look heavier than he really was.

  “My name is Simon Fitzpatrick. I am looking for my father, Oliver.”

  The man seemed frozen for a long moment. Finally he said, “Oliver Fitzpatrick?”

  “Yes. My father.”

  There was another long pause. Then the man seemed to shake himself out of a dream. “How many are you?” the man asked.

  “Eight, including myself.”

  “How the hell did you get here?” It was hard to decipher exactly what he was asking through the heavy mask.

  “It’s a long story,” Simon said, almost smiling. “Who are you?”

  The man snapped open his mask to show his face. He was a gentleman in his fifties with gray hair and pale skin. His sharp, bony features looked like they had not seen sunlight in years. “I’ll ask the questions for the moment,” he said, careful to keep from inhaling too much of the fatally frigid air. “If you don’t mind.” After a moment, he let the heated air of the mask blow back against his mouth. “Come on out.”

  He shuffled back two paces, and Simon and Max stepped out of the Spector and stood on the tunnel’s ice for the first time. Behind them, the others crept out of the ready room, arms up, legs moving very slowly and carefully.

  The leader casually switched his lowered rifle to his heavily gloved left hand and stuck out his right one. “I’m Lucas,” he said. “Thank god you’re here.”

  Not too far in the distance, they all heard the screeching of the robotic Spiders tearing a path through the passageway.

  “Those are the CS-23s that are after you, you know.” Lucas pointed to the tunnel they had just come through.

  “CS-23s?” asked Max.

  “Crevasse Spiders,” Lucas said, looking grim. “One of the most dangerous vehicles in Vector5’s arsenal.” He looked back in that direction with an expression that was half eagerness, half dread. “If we could get hold of one of those things, we could actually get out of this hell hole,” he said.

  Simon found himself nearly hypnotized by the steam rising from Lucas’ breath. It all seemed so impossible.

  Max cocked an ear. “But that’s not them hissing in the background. What’s going on?”

  “It’s the hydrogen generators,” he said. “Fuel for the cycles and other things. Hidden in places too small for the Vector5 people to detect or destroy.”

  Lucas turned suddenly to his men and called out, “Let’s get the rations out of the vehicle,” he shouted, and then turned to Simon. “Get your team ready to go quick as you can. And have them travel light. We don’t have room for all of them as it is.” He turned away again, intent on looting the Spector, and threw his last orders over his shoulder. “Hurry. We have little time. They will cut through this tunnel in a few hours to reach this thing.” Lucas said, referring to the Spector.

  As if in response, the not-so-distant Crevasse Spiders cracked a pillar of ice in half and stumped anoth
er ten yards closer.

  Simon’s team scrambled back inside the vessel, trying to grab their meager personal belongings while Lucas’ men methodically and rapidly stripped every useful thing from the inside of the Spector. The men wasted no time, dragging the cases of food along the icy floor of the tunnel toward their vehicles, still brilliantly lit with their own spots.

  Hayden was in a daze from the gunfire, the sudden turn of events, the looting of his precious invention. “What about the Spector?” he asked Simon, sounding lost and a little shaky. “We can’t just leave it here. It’s…we can’t just abandon ship, can we?”

  Lucas didn’t look at Hayden; he spoke to Simon directly-and firmly. “Listen, this thing can’t go down much further. These tunnels get pretty narrow and dangerous. Not to mention, it’s a sitting target. And it won’t stand a chance against the dense ice and fire from Vector5’s heavy weaponry.”

  “Heavy weaponry?” asked Hayden. “Here?”

  Lucas dropped what he was doing and turned to look Hayden straight in the eye for the first time. “You have no idea. You need to get out of here.” Hayden gaped at him, stunned to silence, until Lucas turned away in frustration and helped Samantha carry a large bag of medical supplies out of the Spector.

  Simon put a hand on Hayden’s shoulder. Suddenly the inventor seemed frail. “We’ll come back for her,” he said gently. “I’m sure we’ll need the fuel cells.”

  “If it’s still here,” Hayden said hollowly. He looked up at the walls, turned to look at the console. “If we’re still here. If anything…” He trailed off, overwhelmed by everything that had happened.

  We can’t afford this, Simon told himself. He took Hayden by the shoulders, turned him so their faces were very close together.

  “Hayden,” he said severely. “Hayden! Focus! Remember why we’re here! You are a brilliant man, and I appreciate how your incredible invention brought us here. It was a miracle. I mean it. But right now, we can’t care about what happens to the Spector. Something is very wrong down here. Very wrong. We need to find Oliver and get the hell out of here.”