Roboteer (23 page)

Will smiled at her, a little nervously. He wasn’t sure exactly how much he had to do with their success. ‘It’s not really me,’ he said. ‘They just drop things into my head.’

She snorted. ‘They drop puzzles, Will. You’re the one who solves them.’

A mere four hours later, they were ready to snap the final pistons holding the sphere in place and sail it out into the void. The shuttle waited just outside with grapples extended.

Rachel regarded the scene with a gleeful grin on her face. ‘We did it!’ she exclaimed. ‘
You
did it. You’re amazing, Will.’ She hugged him and blew him a kiss from helmet to helmet.

Ira’s call caught Will in mid-blush. ‘Rachel, Will, cease your activity. Shut down all radiation signatures and wait for further instructions. The Earthers are here.’

10.2: IRA

The Earther gunship crept into the system like a visitor to a haunted house. That caution was understandable. Ira could imagine what must be going through the captain’s head – the same things that had gone through his about a week ago. He held his breath as he watched the Earthers edge up to the exact part of the ring where the
Ariel
was parked. It wasn’t a great surprise. Ira had put the ship in the middle of the thickest concentration of ruins – it was the obvious place to look, and in retrospect he could see that he’d courted this. Part of him preferred the thought of being found and killed to eking out a pitiful existence among the dead for the rest of his life.

That was why he’d been so reluctant to let Will go, he realised. And of course, true to form, the Earthers had shown up the very moment when two of his crew were out of his sight. Their timing was about right for the luck he’d been having lately.

The good news was that he’d anticipated the moment and prepared for it. From the moment Amy’s deep-space scans had given him warning, it had taken less than a minute to shut down the
Ariel
’s radiation profile. Now they were just one more piece of floating junk. The conditions for an ambush were almost perfect.

The only problem was the plume of heated matter that Will’s little adventure had produced over at the Fecund ship. In the dead cold of the system, it glared like a beacon. But it was small. Hopefully the Earthers would never get that close. The Sargasso region Ira had parked in was still hundreds of thousands of kilometres across. There was plenty of it to get lost in.

‘Hugo,’ said Ira, ‘it’s time to power up that new g-ray of yours.’

‘I haven’t finished testing it,’ croaked Hugo. ‘Just two more minutes and I can at least run an ad hoc calibration.’

Ira breathed deeply. ‘Too late for that,’ he said. ‘Turn it on.’

‘You realise that at this distance, it’ll still take about ten minutes for the suntap to come online?’

‘Then we’d better get started straight away, hadn’t we?’ Ira growled. ‘John, help him. Give him targeting support. I want a clean shot at their habitat core.’

If he could manage it, Ira wanted the Earther ship intact. Their antimatter could save his mission, and the element of surprise was about the only advantage he was going to get. The gunship was bigger than the
Ariel
and a lot better armed.

He watched with his heart in his mouth as the Earthers fired off drones to explore. Their weapons and defences were all running hot, at full battle status. He wondered what emotion was uppermost in the Earther captain’s mind right now. His guess was either awe or terror, with an outside chance of jubilation at the thought of the bonus he’d collect when he reported all this. Not that Ira intended to let the captain leave.

The minutes crawled by. Finally, Hugo spoke.

‘Suntap online!’ There was no small amount of pride in his voice.

‘Fire at will,’ said Ira.

‘Not yet, Captain,’ John said quickly. ‘We haven’t got a clean line of sight any more. There’s too much crap in the way.’

Ira gritted his teeth. If they misjudged the shot at this distance, they could hit the gunship’s juice-containment system, and that would be bad news for everybody.

‘Shit!’ said Amy. ‘They’ve found Will.’

Ira glanced over at the tactical display she sent him and groaned as he saw drones zero in on Will’s plume.

‘Reading broadcasts on the Earthers’ primary band,’ said John. ‘They’re not using tight-beam. They can’t be getting line-of-sight, either.’

‘What kind of encryption?’ said Ira.

‘Nothing I can’t break.’

‘You’d better hurry,’ he warned. ‘It doesn’t look like we’ve got much time.’

The drones closed in on Will and Rachel but didn’t fire. The Earthers must have been curious. The gunship powered across the debris field towards them on its fusion torches and then nosed in close with a few light bursts from its thrusters.

‘Broke their level one,’ John announced. ‘Now we can watch, at least.’

He sent Ira a video feed. It showed a view straight into the hot little hole Will had dug for himself. The
Ariel
’s shuttle floated nearby in plain sight.

‘Galatean agents!’ the Earthers boomed over the Truce Channel. ‘You are hereby claimed as prisoners of war for the Kingdom of Man. Reveal yourselves immediately! Any attempt at violence will be met with force.’

There was nothing but silence from the hole. Ira felt a surge of pride. His crew weren’t the surrendering kind.

When the silence started to drag, the Earthers tried a slightly softer approach.

‘This site has been deemed a scientific resource of the Reconsiderist subsect. You are trespassing. However, surrender now and you will be not be harmed. The captain is prepared to offer full sanctuary terms in return for strategic information.’

Ira didn’t doubt that the Earther captain had plenty of questions, like:
What the hell is this place?
for a start.

There was still no reply from the hole. The Earther drones started moving. Several of them docked like lampreys onto the shuttle. Another, bristling with weapons, nudged towards the hole. Behind them, the gunship inched closer.

‘We have line-of-sight,’ John said triumphantly.

‘Hugo, fire!’ Ira ordered.

There was a grunt of surprise from Hugo’s bunk as the suntap snapped on. For a second, all the
Ariel
’s exterior sensors wobbled. A deafening squawk drowned out the comms bands. Then the beam was gone.

John was the first to get his console back in shape. ‘Earther broadcast channel is dead,’ he said. ‘Their drone control appears to be down.’

‘No signs of retaliation,’ Amy reported. ‘Scanning their ship for damage.’

It sounded like a direct hit but Ira wasn’t taking any chances. ‘Hugo, give them another shot.’

‘I can’t!’ Hugo whined. ‘The circuits are all burned out – the weapon used a lot more power than I thought it would.’

Great
, thought Ira.
Now we’re sitting ducks again.

Aloud, he said, ‘John, ready torpedoes.’

‘Ira, I’m not sure we need to,’ said Amy. ‘Earther defences are in passive rundown. They’re drifting and they have a hull-scorch like nothing I’ve ever seen. I think we got them.’

Ira blinked. Could they really be dead already, from just one shot?

‘I’ve cracked their level two,’ said John. ‘Want to take a look?’

‘Go ahead,’ said Ira, but no pictures appeared in his visor.

‘Huh!’ John grunted. ‘None of their internal cameras are responding. No, wait – here’s one.’

A window popped up at last. The view it showed was startling. Charred bodies floated in a sea of black dust. Everything inside was ruined. Every single buffer on the ship must have burned out as if it wasn’t there. Hugo made a strangled sound.

Ira immediately thought of Will and Rachel. They were outside. And they hadn’t been far away from that monster beam.

‘Rachel!’ Ira shouted into his mike. ‘Rachel, are you there?’

The reply was faint and crackly. ‘Here, Captain.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘We’re fine, Captain,’ said Rachel.

‘What happened to you?’

‘Will and I retreated into the tunnel system,’ she said. ‘Will was watching through the waldobot when there was this flash and all the Earther drones went dead. Was that Hugo’s work?’

‘It was indeed,’ said Ira jubilantly. He found himself breaking into a massive grin. ‘Any damage?’ he asked. ‘What do your Geigers show?’

‘We’re fine, Captain. Will’s got a headache from being in the waldobot’s mind when the flash came, but he’ll live.’

Ira laughed in relief. ‘Thank Gal!’

‘We should be back aboard the
Ariel
within the hour,’ said Rachel.

‘That’s excellent. Really excellent.’

Ira turned off the channel and leaned out of his bunk. ‘Hugo, that was great! Well done!’

But Hugo didn’t reply. Ira checked his bunk camera and found the scientist white and shaking.

‘Hugo, what’s wrong?’ he said.

‘I don’t think he’s ever killed anyone before,’ said John.

Ira blinked. He should have guessed. His heart sank. Hugo was almost certainly in shock. As if the man hadn’t been fragile enough already.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ira told the scientist gently, ‘but it was them or us and I’m glad it’s them. You did good, Hugo, even if it feels awful. You saved all our lives. You might even have saved the home world.’

He addressed the rest of the crew. ‘I want a full investigation of that ship, and I want a fuel-transfer conduit set up immediately. There could be others coming in any time. I don’t intend to be here when they arrive.’

Ira found it hard to suppress a mounting sense of delight. They were free of this awful place at last.

10.3: WILL

Ira didn’t look particularly impressed when Will returned to the ship with a hundred-ton piece of cargo but was clearly too preoccupied to complain.

‘Great, you’re back at last,’ he said as they emerged from the docking pod. ‘I need you both to work on the fuel transfer right away. John’s lined everything up for you – you’ll find the details in your data spaces.’

‘Captain,’ said Will, ‘I’d like to talk to you about what we found.’

‘Me, too,’ said Ira. ‘Once we have this situation under control. Getting us mobile comes first. There could be more Earthers out there.’ He turned back to John and Amy. ‘All right, have we come to any conclusions yet?’

Will fought down his frustration. Had he not made it clear what the nest archive was? It was the answer to the entire war. He glanced quickly at Rachel to share his displeasure. She gave him a knowing look.
He’s the captain
, her eyes said.

She was right, of course. Will slid into his bunk and plugged in. John’s work on the conduit was laid out before him but Will chose not to completely immerse. He kept his audio link to the cabin fully open. He wanted to hear what the captain was planning.

‘John and I have been looking over the charts,’ said Amy. ‘With what we can siphon from the Earthers, we should be able to get through the lobe and out past Zuni. The bad news is that we still don’t have enough to reach Li-Delamir. However, the good news is that John’s identified a system occupied by the Earthers with a strong resistance movement that could help us.’

‘Which one?’ said Ira.

‘New Angeles,’ John replied. ‘They’re well organised and have access to juice-factories. I know because I used them back when I did that project with Counter-Propaganda. We could arrive by stealth, link up with them and be on our way in no time.’

There was a pause.

‘Do you trust them?’ said Ira. He sounded unconvinced. ‘Remember, we’ve been burned by local resistance people before. I don’t like tangling with them unless it’s under orders.’

Then don’t
, Will thought. Hadn’t Ira received Rachel’s report when they were freeing the archive? They already had an answer, if they could take the time to work it out. He was convinced now that this was what the Transcended intended for them, and that their solution was almost certain to be a better one than anything humans could devise.

‘What do the rest of you think?’ Ira asked.

That was enough. Will unplugged and drifted out of his bunk to join the conversation.

‘John has convinced me,’ said Amy. ‘These people sound pretty reliable.’

‘Hugo?’ said Ira.

Hugo hung near the top bunks with his arms folded, looking uncharacteristically pale. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Rachel?’

Rachel shrugged. ‘I don’t see that we’ve got much choice.’

Will winced. How could she not?

‘But I’d like to hear what Will says first,’ she said, glancing back at him. ‘I think he’s better placed than any of us to comment right now.’

Ira turned to face Will. The captain’s eyes had a kind of hungry, impatient look to them, as if he was about to demand to know why Will wasn’t still working on the refuelling. Well, fuck that.

‘I think we should stay,’ Will said before Ira could get a word in. ‘The answer to our problems is somewhere in that archive. I think we should be looking for it, not dashing out of here as fast as we can.’

Ira’s face darkened. ‘For how long?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Will. ‘Till we have answers.’

‘And if there are more Earther ships on the way?’

Will spoke as calmly as he could. ‘We give them the same treatment we gave that last one.’

Ira shook his head. ‘We can’t. That blast blew the circuits. Hugo says it’ll take two days to get the suntap running again and he’ll need to borrow more kit from the
Ariel
to do it.’

Will hadn’t known that. But then again, they didn’t need suntaps to rig an ambush. He opened his mouth to reply but Ira talked over him.

‘Not to mention the fact that there’s still a battle fleet waiting to turn our home into slag just a few light-years away from here. And now they know about us. We’ve found what we came for, Will – a working suntap and defences against it. But if we don’t get home soon, they won’t help anyone. Furthermore, I have no intention of being captured at the next place we refuel, and that means we need to leave in time to conceal our radiation trail. Which means
now
.’