Chasing Solace

by Karl Drinkwater

  The Lost Ship loomed closer. A zoomed-in camera window opened, showing the sky-window now fully re-formed.

  “Where did the assassin go?”

  “Recordings show she made it through the sky-window before it sealed itself.”

  “I don’t want to go in that way, then. Any other options?”

  “Scanning via Hedgehogs ... there is an emergency surface hatch on the outer hull, not too far from the route you were going to take.”

  A three-dimensional view of the Lost Ship appeared on the display, with a dotted line showing the simplest trajectory between Opal and the hatch. It was to the fore of the ship, in the ugly bulky section that made Opal think of bunched muscles, contracted but ready to pounce.

  “I wish I’d just boarded at that point earlier. Could have saved a lot of hassle and time.”

  “Unfortunately, that was impossible. Athene boarded you at the most convenient airlock. At that time, this area of hull was featureless save for some unidentified scratch marks. Comparisons of various captured scans suggest the hatch was either undetectable, or not present, earlier.”

  “And that could suggest help ... or a trap.”

  “Correct.”

  “I haven’t got any better options. Guide me to it.”

  There was no sign of the AI ships now that Opal had rounded the massive Gigatoir’s hull.

  “I have run out of fuel for the jets,” said the suit. “I can generate more, but it takes time.”

  Opal checked the displays and saw with frustration that the reserves were empty too, and now the suit made use of Opal’s limited oxygen supply, expelling it in one direction to move her in the other.

  “The micro bursts of vented air will slow you down slightly,” said the suit. “Please brace yourself for impact.”

  “Brace myself?” The hull loomed closer. Impact was such an annoying word. “I guess you mean ‘grit my teeth’, because there’s not a heck of a lot else I can do.”

  “You are correct. I will use the internal compression layers to absorb the majority of the force as you strike the hull at over twenty kilometres per hour, and I am angling you in for minimal discomfort. Due to its exotic nature the hull is not as magnetic as a standard alloy would be, but the Gigatoir’s nearby surface-mounted cluster of inert manoeuvring thrusters should provide something to grab onto and redirect from. It is a shame you did not keep your grapple rifle.”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  Now the dark grey, strangely pockmarked hull filled most of her forward view. Red glows of the nebula beyond fringed the Gigatoir like a halo of fire.

  “I can give you a countdown until impact,” said the suit.

  “Don’t bother. Anticipation’s worse.”

  The sealed domes of the thrusters rushed towards her. She looked for handholds, communication rods, anything to grip. There, a ridged surface. She was moving fast, skimming the hull. She trailed an arm below, her fingertips brushing the rough material; the friction let her rotate so that she hit the dome in a crouched position, absorbing some of the impact as she grabbed the lip of the vent.

  “You did grit your teeth,” said the suit.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Your masseter muscle was bunched up. Are you aware that it is one of the strongest muscles in the human body?”

  “The bullet in me ... it hurts. Feels like I’ve been shot.”

  “You have been shot. Would you like me to administer more painkillers?”

  That’s how Opal knew she was having a conversation with the cut-down suit AI. The real Athene would have known she was joking. Opal missed that. Another version of herself to speak to. The perfect companion who’d been by her side and watching over her almost every second since this crazy adventure began. The perfect companion that might even now be planning to betray her.

  Even if the motivation is pure, a stab is still a stab.

  “No more painkillers. They dull me. I’ll cope.”

  “Nuvo-analgesic CNS binders shouldn’t have that effect.”

  “It’s hard to explain. It dulls my ... well, not my perceptions, but my sensitivity. The things I see or feel on the ship, that I might need to react to. Things that can’t always be seen, measured, predicted. I’d rather be aware of my vulnerabilities. Pain isn’t so bad if you don’t see it as an enemy.”

  The HUD showed the location and distance to the mystery hatch. Opal launched herself gently, trying to keep within the guideline trajectory with a pace slow enough to be able to react, and close to the rough hull so she could push away from it if necessary. She skimmed along about forty centimetres above it, though the closeness made it feel like she was going a lot faster.

  Four hundred and thirty metres to the hatch.

  She took deep breaths whenever the pain flared up, and tried not to focus on the surgery she’d need, and how mashed up her internal organs might be. She was sure the suit could generate a schematic and simulated interior view for her if she asked. Huh. She already had enough stuff that could give her nightmares.

  Four hundred and five metres to the hatch.

  “Incoming signal from Athene,” said the suit.

  “Block it!”

  “I already have. I’m not taking any chances. But this was a request, not a command, and the content is a message.”

  “Can you replay it? Safely?”

  “Yes.”

  Then Athene’s voice, but with urgency and stress in it. “I can’t keep up comms right now, Opal, and can’t explain, there’s too much going on ... too mu ... too mu ... but I’m fighting VigMAX and it’s proving di-di-diff ... some time. All processing. I am sorry I am not in you ... with you ... So difficult. ... If I win, I’ll be back in – oh, that was critical, I’m not – yes, how do you like that, VigMAX? – sorry Opal, I have to go. If I fail ... keep going.” Something screeched like tearing metal. “You can ... can ... do it.”

  “End of message,” said the suit.

  Opal almost punched the hull, but stopped herself in time. The reaction force would launch her into space for good. You can never touch without being touched back.

  Three hundred and sixty-two metres to the hatch.

  “It sounds like she is fighting for me. Any way to re-open communication? Or to help her?”

  “The communication was one way. I am able to track Athene because the Hedgehogs on the Gigatoir’s hull create a network, and Athene and VigMAX are currently on the other side and to the rear of the Lost Ship. They are almost totally still. Perhaps they are in communication, or something has happened to paralyse them. In contrast to that ... I detect motion. Behind you.”

  Opal turned carefully to look back without disrupting her current course at a close proximity to the rough hull. At first she saw nothing, but then the suit highlighted a greyish, undulating shape emerging from the black mouth of an open manoeuvring thruster, similar to the closed ones she’d recently collided with. It was hard to discern what the amorphous, shifting thing was.

  “Enhance,” she said.

  The zoomed-in view made it a lot clearer. It wasn’t one large creature: it was many smaller ones. Muscular torpedo-shaped beings with flattened bodies and bony extrusions which extended forwards from what were presumably their heads. They swirled and rolled together in complex patterns as they drifted from the dark ellipse of the thruster, and only began to split apart when they reached the level hull. They obviously had some unknown means of locomotion for it to work in the vacuum of space. No stranger than them being able to resist the extreme cold, lack of atmosphere, and continuous bombardment of radiation, in contravention to all known rules for biological organisms.

  When they twisted she could see their fleshy, open undersides; and once they were low and near the hull – at a similar height to herself, she realised – they sometimes skimmed it, leaving acidic burns on the hull’s surface.

  “I’ve seen them before,” said Opal.

  “Yes. I have reviewed the recordings from your last mission. Thes
e creatures seem slightly different in that their size is greater than the ones you encountered. Perhaps a result of existing within torsion engine systems.”

  As Opal looked at them a sound echoed in her mind. The echo of it wasn’t her voice, wasn’t even directly translatable, but it sounded like Satreweth. As she heard the sounds – or maybe felt them was more accurate – she realised it was the same sensation as when she came up with a name for the Tentaculats. Sounds that just felt right. Whether knowledge, mirage, or memory, it was something to analyse – once she was out of danger. Because now the pack of Satreweth were spreading out, coming towards her, with some accelerating and heading to flanking positions. The classic sign of a pack predator which scents prey.

  Three hundred and twenty-three metres to the hatch. She’d never make it before they reached her.

  “Ballistics are no good,” said Opal. “Recoil would bash me all over the place.” She turned her head, trying to spot any escape route as the distance to the hatch counted down far too slowly. “Anyway, I don’t really want to kill them if I can help it. This must be their home.”

  “I sense no nearby exits, apart from another of these open manoeuvring thrusters.”

  “I don’t want to go there, if it’s where they live.”

  “And there is not enough energy in the jets to get there quickly, or to resort to outer space evasion. I could use explosives, or weaponise the nearest Hedgehog, but considering your propensity for tender-hearted suicidal risks, there may be another option which won’t require me taking over control of your weapons and suit in order to preserve your organic viability.”

  “All ears.”

  “Athene analysed all the data from the last Lost Ship, and the effects of different weapons. She believes that some of the creatures track energy emissions, rather than relying on primitive senses that work on reflected light, as human eyes do. The reactions of these creatures implied responses to electrical stimuli. I have been modified so that I can shut down certain system emissions, alter temperature and electrical potential to match the localised environment.”

  “So I could become invisible to them?”

  “Yes.” After a few seconds: “You might. It’s only a theory.”

  Two hundred and ninety metres to the hatch. The predatory lines of Satreweth had halved their distance since they first appeared, and were gliding directly towards her with sinister intention. Time was running out.

  “If they primarily swarm as defence then a disappearing threat might be enough to make them call off the pursuit,” said Opal. “Do it.”

  “You will have to stay completely still.”

  “I’ve played dead before.”

  The sooner those streamlined beings lost their target, the better the chance of her drifting unmolested on the perfect trajectory to the mystery hatch. But something the suit had said gave her an idea.

  “Can you bring the nearest Hedgehog over?” asked Opal.

  “Yes, but why? It will be detected by them.”

  “The grenade that is modified as a false suit signal – could the Hedgehog transport it somehow into that open manoeuvring thruster? Maybe divert them ... and maybe send Xandrie that way later if she picks up the false indicator. She may even find a reception committee. It’s a long shot, but if it might keep her away from me, then it’s worth trying.”

  “Multiple outcomes,” said the suit. “I like the way your organic intelligence thinks. You could almost be an AI.”

  “Keep working on the humour and you could almost be a human.”

  “The Hedgehog is on the way. The signal grenade is ready to launch. Proximity to hatch: two hundred and sixty-one metres. Proximity of the creatures from you: three hundred metres, but their speed is more than twice yours. By the way, it would be inefficient of me to waste resources on humour development, though if you want me to make you laugh, and don’t mind the resultant jolting pain from your injuries, I’ll do it. I have a full understanding of human anatomy and the location of your funny bone.”

  The dry tone meant Opal still didn’t know if the suit was trying to be droll. Or maybe it was just being kind and attempting to distract her from the dangers she faced. It was the kind of thing a friend would do.

  “We will have to shut down all emissions now,” said the AI.

  A sudden thought. What friends would do.

  “Wait,” said Opal, watching the torpedo-like creatures writhing closer, burning long score marks across the hull.

  “There’s no time, we need to go suit-silent.”

  “Just a moment! The other Hedgehogs – send signals to them, get them to gather near where Athene is fighting VigMAX. And if any opportunity occurs to launch them and do damage to VigMAX from their internal explosives, do it.”

  “But Athene already has a control channel to them.”

  “I don’t care. She’s in distress and I’m concerned about her. She may not be able to take attention away to focus on other stuff. Do it if the chance arises. It might help. I’m more of a burden to her, so anything I can do, whatever it is, however small, I have to try.”

  “You will no longer have access to the Hedgehogs’ energy web to enhance scanning for Xandrie’s stealth suit.”

  “Just do it, please.”

  “Confirmed. I’ve sent the commands, and they’re being passed Hedgehog to Hedgehog, rather than relayed via Ship-Athene. And now we have to shut down. They’re almost here.”

  Opal froze her position, legs out straight, arms crossed on her chest. A stable low-profile shape, flying along on its back. Unfortunately, also the shape of a body in a coffin, but she had enough worries already without adding superstition or premonition into the mix.

  There wasn’t a major noticeable difference as the stealth mode kicked in. The HUD display dimmed, and the silverlight switched off completely. Because she couldn’t risk moving her body or head, the external suit cams overlaid views from many different directions onto small screens in front of her face. In one, the dark grey hull whizzed by below her. Another showed the beautiful energised gases of the surrounding nebula in different depths of colour and brightness. On one camera the Hedgehog approached – a small squarish object with prehensile silvery spines emerging from the corners and helping it to tumble over the surface. It passed beneath her like a speedy robotic sea urchin, and was picked up on another camera to the side. She spotted the signal grenade that the suit had ejected as the Hedgehog homed in on it, before the little Hedgehog used two of the limbs to pull the disc against its body. The grenade stayed attached to the Hedgehog’s torso as it tumbled away towards the black maw of the Gigatoir’s manoeuvring thruster. There were a number of them over the hull, enabling the massive ship to readjust its position and orbit.

  Another screen focussed on the Satreweth. Some of them peeled away from the main pack to follow the Hedgehog in its frantic spins towards shadow. The rest continued towards her. Forty-one metres. She could now make out the detail on their bodies. The bulges on their greyish sides and upper surfaces looked muscular, powerful. They swayed the bony facial extrusions side to side as they somehow “swam” and hull-burned their way towards her. Sharp spikes edged the bone like teeth, or spines. She remembered that the cartilaginous snouts contained fimbriated pores that detected electrical activity, while the weighty saw-toothed limb could double as a slicing weapon – with tremendous force, going off their size and muscle mass. If the suit had been able to use all the scanners it would have given readouts of the creatures’ vital statistics, but in this shutdown mode it wouldn’t risk more than collecting visual input, which seemed an effective compromise in case action was required. Shutting your eyes doesn’t protect you from the bogeyman.

  The first of them passed nearby. Although she couldn’t look directly, she estimated from the screen displays that it was about five to ten times the mass of herself and her suit, assuming densities in a standard range. It could be more.

  But it was passing. That was all that mattered. It didn’t seem
to be focussing on her – more following a trail that had gone cold. Maybe this trick was working, though she couldn’t feel too much relief yet, since even an accidental impact from their acidic undersides or swaying head-extrusions could be a problem.

  A camera showed another Satreweth approaching fast. It was gliding up in an arc and would pass over her.

  “Clear the screens,” she said. They immediately slid out of view, letting her look upwards at the stars above ... and then the view was occluded by the huge creature passing only a couple of metres over her head. It was too dark to make out many details without external suit lights, but the undersides were substantially different from the greyish hide on the other surfaces: there were squishy organs in there, seemingly exposed, and fizzing with what was presumably the acidic excretions the creatures produced. Whether it was for defence, or attack, or locomotion, or some other more alien purpose, Opal had no idea. She just hoped the being wouldn’t glide down on top of her and melt her face – and everything else – off.

  She realised she was holding her breath.

  The Satreweth twitched, a central contraction which made its front and rear ends curve in the same direction; then a contrary muscular spasm moved them the other way. The heavy, spike-edged bony part swung over her head, cutting through void silently. It was an awesome being. It exuded crushing power and incomprehensible alienness. Ugly, yet beautiful; ungainly, yet efficient.

  She forced herself to take deep and calming breaths, and to resist the urge to panic, to twist away. She had to trust. Trust that this impromptu invisibility worked. Trust that another of the unexpected signals wouldn’t come from Athene and make the suit’s limbs jerk, attracting unwanted attention and instant acidic death.

  After a while it gave another few twitches and moved off at an angle, lowering towards the ship’s hull, but on a trajectory that should make contact just out of her vicinity.

  More of them drifted by in a creepy, silent, graceful stampede. And yet all Opal could do was stay still and float. Momentum carried her onwards. As was the story of her recent life.