The Tin Soldiers (Final Dawn, Book 5)

by T W M Ashford

  And waited.

  Nobody dared speak. Nobody dared crack open the door again to check whether the acolytes were close or not. All they could do was listen to the muffled sound of cult-pirates wandering amongst their stolen goods and whispering to one another.

  Down by his hip, Jack’s hand tightened around his pistol.

  After a few minutes, the shuffling and muted voices grew distant. A few minutes later still, Jack felt safe enough to let out the breath he’d been turning purple trying to hold.

  They all looked at one another without saying anything.

  Klik finally broke the long, tense silence.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Jack opened a small compartment on the side of his spacesuit and pulled out an old ration bar. He tore it in half and handed a piece to Klik. She stared at the pathetic morsel in despair.

  “Nibble it,” he whispered. “We might need to make it last.”

  9

  The Pit-Stop

  The trip didn’t take weeks. Nor did it take days. It did last a good four or five hours, however. Thank heavens both he and Klik had gone to the bathroom before they set off that morning.

  Jack cracked open the door of their container once he was sure that the warehouse was empty and took a look.

  Well, it sure was empty now.

  The acolytes had cleared the whole warehouse since the freighter touched down on solid ground again, which explained all of the laboured grunting and mechanical grinding noises they’d heard from inside their cramped hiding spot. Every single one of the LX-14s had been off-boarded. Nothing remained in the hall except for a few leather fastening straps and now, thanks to Klik, the plastic wrapper for a rubbery and flavourless UEC ration bar.

  “Where’d everybody go?” she asked, stretching her arms above her head. Jack tried to crack his neck and relieve some of his own stiffness, but his helmet kept getting in the way.

  “I have no idea,” said Rogan, slowly turning on the spot with her hands on her metal hips. “But I think we ought to get off this ship as quickly as we can.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s looking for us,” said Tuner. “If they haven’t found us by now, they never will.”

  “No,” said Rogan, “but who knows how soon the freighter will take off again. Another four hours spent stuck inside a box won’t leave us any the wiser as to why the Archimandrite brought a couple battalions of stolen automata here.”

  “Or why we came here with them,” Jack muttered to himself. Rogan was right, though. They ought to leave the ship and get their bearings… and then relay those bearings to the Adeona for immediate pickup.

  Tuner wielded his barely functional laser rifle as if he expected an army to be waiting for them on the other side of the warehouse doors. He probably would have pumped it dramatically, had it been a shotgun.

  “I guess we go out the way we came in, then.”

  As it turned out, they faced no more resistance in the dark, deserted corridors outside than they did in the warehouse itself. Wherever the acolytes had suddenly gone, they weren’t on the freighter anymore. And Rogan true enough, chucking the acolyte over the side of the pedestrian loading ramp before take-off had been a wise move. Had they left her on board the ship, the rest of the pirate crew would have certainly found her when they’d come to disembark.

  They stood around the brightly lit exit, none of them wanting to be the first to leave.

  “Shouldn’t we find out where we’re disembarking first?” asked Klik. “Like, doesn’t Adi usually tell us if we’re about to step onto a planet made of quicksand or methane or something?”

  Rogan huffed.

  “Yes. Well. Adi isn’t here, is she? Speaking of which…”

  She paused as she tried getting hold of their ship again. Jack waited impatiently for a reply.

  “The good news is that my comms are working again,” Rogan said a moment later. “The bad news is that we’re out of range. Way out of range. We’ll need to find a way to boost our signal if we want to get hold of Adi.”

  “Of course we will.” Jack did his best to push his frustration back down where the others couldn’t see it. “Let’s make that our priority, then. If we get left behind on an empty rock, we’re done for.”

  “The freighter will have long-range comm equipment up on the bridge,” said Tuner, pointing back down the corridor. “Why don’t we go use that?”

  “Because I dare say there will be plenty of like-minded acolytes doing exactly that right this second,” said Rogan, shaking her head. “Somebody had to land this ship and disable its tracking beacons, after all. No, we’ll need to find somewhere a little quieter to call Adi from. We don’t want to bring the whole cult down on our heads.”

  “Agreed,” said Jack. “Presuming there’s anything else out here besides the ships, of course.”

  They all turned back to the ramp.

  “Better hope it’s not methane, then,” said Tuner, waddling out of the ship.

  Jack followed the little guy down. What he first mistook for blinding white rays of sunlight actually originated from giant floodlights stationed all around the freighter. Jack’s heart sank. So much for hoping they’d landed on some lush, heavily-populated tropical paradise with a toll-free intergalactic payphone they could use.

  He crunched his boot into the dead, grey dirt at the bottom of the ramp. Only it wasn’t dirt, really. It was grit. Grit, and a hell of a lot of rock.

  And it was everywhere.

  He looked up into space and quickly averted his gaze. The stars were spinning. Their movement made him want to throw up.

  “Oh, God.” Jack covered the top of his visor with his hands so he didn’t have to look at them. “Why are they moving like that?”

  “What’s moving like what?” Rogan snapped as she grabbed Jack’s arm and hurriedly escorted him forwards.

  “The stars! Look at them!”

  “Oh, right.” Rogan somehow managed to sound both pleased and concerned at the same time. “Well, at least that gives us an idea of where we are. Geographically speaking, that is.”

  “Yeah? And where’s that?”

  “An asteroid. The stars aren’t spinning – we are.”

  “For God’s sake. I guess I won’t be taking my helmet off to be sick, then.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Rogan pulled him down behind a craggy crest of rock; Klik and Tuner dutifully followed. “We’re not floating off into space, are we? Either this asteroid is big enough to generate its own gravitational field, or somebody here’s gone to the trouble of installing an artificial one. Either way, there might be a thin atmosphere here as well.”

  “No offence, but I don’t think I’ll test that theory.”

  “You don’t need to,” said Rogan, peering over the top of the crest. “They already have.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Jack, finally realising why Rogan had been in such a hurry to get behind cover.

  They were crouched right on the precipice of an enormous crater. The same floodlights that Jack initially mistook for sunlight lined its perimeter so that no inch of it was illuminated by starlight alone. The second stolen freighter was parked up on the far side opposite them, half of its hull cast in the deep shadow of the cosmos. The rest of the asteroid appeared barren and deserted.

  The inside of the crater, however, was teeming with acolytes and automata.

  It appeared to be a staging ground of some kind. For what purpose, Jack couldn’t yet tell. Squat, pre-fabricated structures, never more than two storeys in height and constructed from thin sheets of cheap metal as grey as the rocks they were built on, were dotted around a pseudo-military compound that wouldn’t have looked out of place beside the Pit back in Sandhurst. A few diggers were parked between the buildings. A small contingent of personal-sized starships were docked together close to the edge of the base.

  Not that there were any guards or soldiers, mind. Not unless you counted the legion of LX-14s, of course.

  They were divided int
o paired sets of two hundred and fifty – the same two sets that had come to the asteroid in their separate freighters. He guessed this was all of it, though half a thousand clockwork soldiers was hardly nothing to worry about. Why the thieves had needed two freighters to bring them here was a whole other question entirely, however. The automata were stood to attention as always, still yet to be brought online with their activation chip. Dozens of black-cloaked figures hurried about the two battalions, most likely preparing to do exactly that. Jack couldn’t see any of their faces particularly clearly, but once again Rogan was right – it didn’t seem as if any of them wore helmets under their hoods.

  He wouldn’t take any chances, though. Even if there was an atmosphere he could breathe, Jack didn’t fancy braving the freezing temperatures. Or suffering from radiation sickness, for that matter. His kind had left Earth for a reason.

  “Is this enough evidence for you?” said Jack, slouching back behind cover.

  “If we can get hold of the Ministry and if the Ministry can get here before the Archimandrite moves the LX-14s again,” Rogan replied rather snootily, “then yes. We still have the small issue of not having any long-range comms to deal with, however.”

  “I might have an answer to that,” said Tuner, pointing down at the compound. “With that many arrays, you’d hope they’ve got a transmitter that works.”

  One of the hastily erected cubicle-buildings sported a busy pylon of satellite dishes and aerials on its roof. It didn’t have much in the way of windows, however – probably because there wasn’t exactly much of a view. Even those blessed with telescopic vision couldn’t tell for sure what equipment was inside.

  “Nice spot, Tuner.” Rogan patted him on the back. “It’s certainly a good place to start.”

  “In case it’s slipped anyone’s mind,” said Jack, “that radio shack is in the middle of a goddamn camp. We barely survived our last encounter with these guys back when there were only two of them, and they really don’t seem like the type who take prisoners.”

  “Then we’d better not get caught,” said Klik, winking.

  “We can wait until they all leave and then try to call Adi, if you’d like?” Rogan’s face was as cold as the metal from which it was made. “How well do you think you can build a quantum-entangled audio-receiver out of asteroid rock? I suppose we can always disassemble Tuner for spare parts.”

  Tuner spun around quickly, having only been half-listening to the conversation.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Fine. Fine.” Jack held up his hands in defeat. “I guess we don’t have much in the way of other options. I’m just trying to point out our low odds of survival, that’s all.”

  “Your pessimistic reluctance is noted, as always,” said Rogan. “But can you at least try to be helpful? If you can’t do that, you’re welcome to wait for us up here on the ridge.”

  “No chance,” said Jack, climbing to his feet. “If we’re going to get killed, I’d much rather die with you lot. Otherwise I’ll just feel guilty and awful, and then probably die anyway.”

  “There’s the usual Jack spirit,” said Tuner.

  There wasn’t much in the way of cover heading down the inside of the crater, just a few misshapen lumps of rock here and there. Certainly nowhere substantial enough for four clumsy interlopers to hide behind.

  Luckily for them, there was hardly an abundance of lookouts, either. The few cultists tasked with patrolling the perimeter of the compound appeared more interested in watching the impressive ensemble of LX-14s than they did guarding them. They were on a random asteroid in the middle of nowhere, after all. It wasn’t as if they expected visitors.

  Never send a monk to do a soldier’s job, Jack mused to himself. Or vice versa, he supposed.

  A few minutes of uncouth scrambling brought them to the bottom of the crater. They took cover behind the rear wall of the prefabricated structure nearest to them. Much to Jack’s dismay, it wasn’t the one burdened with an excess of communication equipment. They still had further to go.

  “Okay,” said Rogan. “So far, so good. Everybody stick together and keep out of the floodlights where you can. And if somebody spots us, run.”

  “Where to?” asked Klik, peering around the empty expanse of grey nothingness.

  “Away from the sound of gunfire,” Tuner suggested.

  “Works for me,” said Jack. “Though try not to run too far. On a rock this small, you might find yourself running back towards it again.”

  Rogan checked the path forward was clear and then led them across the short gap to the next building along. Keeping out of the floodlights was a lot harder than she made it sound. Some of the biggest ones were outside the pit facing inwards, which meant the closest they ever got to a shadow was the one they made when they stood with their backs to the wall. Even then, it was only a slightly darker kind of light.

  If they’d been up against the usual standard of pirates, they would have been shot by now. Or worse.

  Tuner poked his head around the corner of their present structure and then immediately yanked it back. He shook it silently and cautiously. A pair of acolytes were strolling past.

  “He still hasn’t switched those robots on yet,” Jack heard one of them say to the other in a voice like sand being fed through a meat-grinder. “What’s he waiting for, d’ya think?”

  “Probably waitin’ til after the speech,” the other replied. The words came thick and slow, like oil. They sounded like they might belong to the same species as the ogreish assassin who once attempted to kill him back at the Ministry headquarters.

  “I hope so. Their faces give me the creeps.”

  “Eh? They don’t have any faces.”

  “Exactly. It ain’t right, if you ask me…”

  Their voices faded as they passed. Rogan shook her head in disappointment, then led them forth once more.

  At last, they reached the outhouse decorated with antennas and arrays. Jack risked a peek at the plain door up the steps on its left hand side. It was unguarded. The same couldn’t be guaranteed of the door’s inside, of course. And still no windows. The comm station – presuming it was a comm station, of course – may as well have been set up in the back of a truck’s trailer. The walls certainly looked flimsy enough.

  Rogan huddled everyone together and whispered.

  “Right. Tuner and I will go inside and use whatever equipment we find in there to signal our location to Adi. Jack, Klik – you two stay out here and make sure nobody wanders in after us.”

  “Bugger that,” said Jack, barking out a single laugh. “I’m not staying out here where all the nutters are. How come you two are going in and not us?”

  “Because we can access interfaces your fleshy minds can’t,” Rogan replied impatiently. “Honestly, Jack. Do you want to get out of here alive or not?”

  “It’s fine,” said Klik, sighing. “You three go in. I’ll keep watch. If I see someone coming, I’ll bang on the wall three times. Or maybe I’ll just shoot them. The whole base is probably gonna hear it either way.”

  Rogan gave Jack a look. He knew just as well as she did that leaving Klik outside on her own probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but he wasn’t about to concede that. Somebody did need to keep watch, after all.

  “Come on, then.” Rogan shook her head in exasperation. “I suppose it only takes one person to keep an eye on the door, anyway. Just make sure you do keep an eye on it, okay?”

  “Hey!” Klik looked hurt. “I’m not completely useless, you know. I spent years not getting caught before you guys came along.”

  “You’re going to do great,” said Jack, patting her on the shoulder. “Stay out of trouble. We’ll be in and out in no time.”

  Klik crouched down behind the building in a bid to make herself as small as possible. Her spacesuit was a dark, metallic grey, and it kind of camouflaged her against the rock. Kind of, so long as you were colourblind, visually impaired and willing to ignore her lime-green face squinting out
through her visor. Rogan, Tuner and Jack tiptoed to the unassuming door as carefully and as quietly as they could, checked both ways, and then slowly creaked it open.

  They darted through and pulled it shut behind them.

  Jack relaxed. The comm station was empty.

  Empty of people, at least.

  Far from high-tech, the computers and terminals lining the walls of the cramped shack were relics even by Earth standards. Presuming they could send a signal – and Jack had to guess they did, otherwise why would the acolytes go to the bother of setting up a comm station at all – it would surely be on the oldest and weakest of wavelengths. Maybe even radio.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised. Old tech was harder for authorities to intercept.

  Neither Rogan or Tuner appeared remotely put off by the computer array in front of them, however. Tuner hurried over to the server in the base of one of the terminals, plugged his finger into a port, and got to work.

  A simple table apart from the computers caught Jack’s eye. It was made from a similarly cheap blend of plastic and metal as the walls of their building and covered in crumpled sheets of parchment. He squeezed past Rogan to take a closer look.

  It was a mess. He brushed a few small and largely gobbledegook documents aside so he could study the larger blueprints beneath.

  “Here, come take a look at this,” he said to Rogan, beckoning her over. “It’s some sort of star map, I think. Does this help?”

  Rogan was busy typing on an alien keyboard with a quarter of its keys scratched off. She tutted and kept her focus on the screen in front of her.

  “Does it have our present location on it?”

  “Erm… I don’t think so. I’m not sure I’m qualified to tell.”

  “Then it probably doesn’t help, no.”

  Jack sighed and went back to the documents. The computers were best left to the automata. It was safer if he stayed with physical media. Parchments don’t set off alarms when you touch them. Usually.

  “Got it,” said Tuner, sharply withdrawing his finger from the port. “We’re somewhere in the asteroid belt of Kauss Nine. Adi should be able to pinpoint our exact position from my signal once she gets close enough.”