Seeds of Earth (58 page)

Kao Chih watched, confused and not understanding the mech's actions or how this was going to get them to Darien. Yash also kept a mistrustful eye on the comms station, probably out of a twisted need to find something amiss, Kao Chih guessed.

A few moments later Drazuma-Ha* withdrew its effectors. 'I have sent a T2 message to my allies' tiernet handler - they should respond in a short while to tell us when ...'

The mech was interrupted by a high-pitched peeping alert from another console further along. Yash cursed and hurried over, examined the displays and muttered angrily as he swiftly prodded several keys then grabbed an overhead monitor and swung it round for them to see.

'So are those your allies, eh? Thought you could just stroll in here and take my ship, did you? Jelk-eating pirates! - I should kill you right here and now . . .'

'Wait,' said the mech. 'These are not our allies , . .

'My God,' Kao Chih said, staring at the monitor. 'It's those droids again - how did they find us? . . .'

'They must have backtracked along that hyperspace course and found our exit point,' said Drazuma-Ha*. 'Perhaps the tesserae fields leave behind an emission residue when they collapse ...'

'Wait, wait, who or what are these newcomers?' Yash said to Kao Chih, pulling the goggles down over his eyes. 'Are they working with you or not? The truth now!'

'Honourable Yash, I swear to you that these droids are not our allies,' Kao Chih said, glancing at the familiar image of the trashed freighter. 'They've been following us for days, trying to stop us fulfilling our mission.'

The Voth nodded wearily and pushed the goggles back up. 'You're telling the truth. So, in other words, you brought your bad luck with you and dumped it on my doorstep.'

'Is the
Viganli
armed, honourable Yash?' the mech said.

Yash snorted. 'Two beam turrets, particle cannon, and a missile carrel - they automatically arm and target unless I countermand them.'

'They may not be sufficient to the task,' the mech said. 'As you can see, their ship is a hulk but it has strong fields protecting its engines. . .'

'So I'll pound it into a million jelking pieces,' the Voth said. 'Just watch.'

Kao Chih heard a muffled charging drone and a faint resonant thrum, repeating again and again. On the external monitor shafts and knots of energy and matter in various combinations flew out at the pursuers' vessel, which somehow managed to evade them. On the few times that it was hit, the damage seemed scarcely noticeable and failed to slow their approach. During all of this Kao Chih had moved over to watch the Voth keying in attack variations, but after several fruitless minutes Yash threw up his hands in disgust.

'Jelk it! - I should be heating up components and metal filings by now! They must have some other shields . . .'

He was interrupted by a high, peeping alert. The Voth frowned and punched up another display and Kao Chih felt his heart sink when it showed a second similar ship accelerating towards the
Viganli.

'Another one?' Yash was grim and angry, suspicion returning to his features as he rounded on Kao Chih. 'What's going on ... and where's your mech friend?'

Kao Chih suddenly realised that Drazuma-Ha * was no longer on the bridge, but before he could profess ignorance of the situation the mech's voice came from the comm system.

'Greetings, honourable Yash and Gowchee - the enemy has called on reinforcements, so you must fire upon them while I pilot the
Castellan
towards our first pursuer. I will attempt to ram their stern and thus make them an easier target.' Sure enough, another screen winked on, showing the
Castellan
manoeuvring away from the
ViganWs
underside. 'I shall, of course, leave in the escape pod before the collision.'

'Crazy jelking machine,' Yash said, his long dark fingers dancing over the weapons controls. 'Now, let's see if we have better luck with this . . .
whoaV

The first volley of particle bolts struck the second ship in a line from amidships to the stern. Impacts tore large holes in the ravaged hull, ripping out cascades of shattered metal, then a couple of bolts found the engines. Something blew out immediately in a while eruption behind the main drives, perhaps the coolant reserves. Then the thrust fuel went up, cracking open the stern like a silver eggshell fracturing along cold blue-icy white lines. In seconds the stern had become an expanding cloud of debris and hot, glowing vapour. Astounded and relieved, Kao Chih applauded.

'Well done, honourable Yash - excellent targeting!'

'Heh, well, yes it was,' the Voth said. 'Now what is your mech friend up to?'

Another small screen whined as it unfolded from an overhead recess, flickered once then showed a mediumrange shot of the
Castellan.
Its main thrusters were burning intermittently, in concert with the positioning jets, while further off was the first pursuing ship, the hulk freighter. Kao Chih watched the two vessels converging with what looked like agonising slowness, even though he knew they were moving at several hundred metres a second. He felt horribly powerless and wished he was out there with Drazuma-Ha*.

'Is your channel still open, Drazuma-Ha *?' he said.

'It is, Gowchee.'

'I hope that you will take the appropriate precautions - I have little desire to attempt to carry out your task as well as my own.'

'Such precautions have already been taken, Gowchee. I shall reach my goal and fulfil my purpose. Now I must deactivate this channel - honourable Gowchee and Yash, my thanks.' . Abruptly, the voice cut off, leaving Kao Chih to stare at the external monitor in puzzlement. The mech's final words had been odd, lacking in its usual conciseness, and expressing thanks seemed somewhat out of character.

'What . . . the jelk,' Yash said, pointing with a long forefinger, 'is that?'

The Voth was indicating a touch-control screen on the comms console - it was glowing a pale blue with dark blue and green graphics, an app options panel with the words 'Terminate Simulation?' across the top.

'What simulation?' said Kao Chih.

'Exactly! - there wasn't one running before you and your machine arrived,' the Voth said as he reached over to the screen, hesitated a moment, then firmly pressed the terminate button.

At once, the image of the
Castellan
and the oncoming freighter disappeared from several screens up and down the control room. A second later, a cluster of board alarms went off, lights and symbols flickered and flashed, and a rasping synth voice spoke.

'Hull breach, outer hold 4, inner pressure doors closing . . . hull breach, outer hold 9, inner pressure doors closing ... inner bulkhead breach, section 23, maintenance drone assigned . . .'

'What. .. what's happening?' said Kao Chih, bewildered now.

'Well, for a jelking start,' Yash said, hefting the plasma cannon and levelling it in his direction, 'there never was any message to your allies, was there? Instead, your machine sets a simulation running, faking an attack and him taking your ship, while all the time he was
stealing my shuttleV
'No, that cannot be ...'

'Look, idiot Human, look!' An external monitor showed the
Castellan
still moored to the harvester's underside, then it switched to a view of some kind of hold with a gantry and racks of equipment. 'And that is Stern Bay 1, where my shuttle is usually berthed, only now it's . . .'

'Intruder detected, deck 10 . . . intruder detected, deck 7 . . . hull breach, outer hold 2, inner pressure doors closing ...'

'And now I'm being boarded,' the Voth moaned. 'Who by? - and where did they come from?'

'It must be the droids from the ship you destroyed,' said Kao Chih, eyeing the wavering business end of the plasma cannon. 'They are agents for a cyborg species called the Legion of Avatars who were defeated by the Forerunners, but these droids have to get to Darien to open a well into hyperspace ...'

'Mad,' the Voth said. 'Completely sun-staring, rocksniffing insane you are! Legions and Forerunners . . . I'm being boarded and you're giving me jelk like that. But here's an idea ...' He prodded Kao Chih with the cannon. '. . . if they're your enemies, maybe I should just welcome them on board and treat them as friends, eh? What do you say?'

'A very sensible proposal,' said a voice from one of the monitors. 'I suggest you adopt it without delay.'

One of the Legion droids was regarding them from the screen. It was a bulky, asymmetrical machine with lens clusters set into a small, off-centre recess. Yash took one look and sneered.

'Jelk you! This is my ship so we play by my rules . . .'

'I don't think you've grasped the fullness of the situation,' the droid said.

Just then the control room lights went out along with all the consoles and monitors, apart from the one they were watching.

'So - where do you think we are?' the droid continued.

Yash flared his nostrils and Kao Chih could actually hear his teeth grinding.

'Power core regulating station,' he muttered.

'Correct. Now, because you destroyed our ship we're going to have to borrow yours so that we can resume our pursuit, made all the more difficult by your stupidity in letting the Instrument take your shuttle . ..'

'Stupidity?' said the Voth, long teeth bared.

'Yours and this halfwit Human's. Anyway, before we can do anything we have to unpick the autodestruct which the Instrument planted in the hyperdrive startup datachain.' Some of the consoles came back to life. 'Take a look.'

As the Voth bent over a console and called up streams of incomprehensible code, Kao Chih slumped into one of the bucket seats, thoughts whirling. Clearly, DrazumaHa* had been planning all this since before they'd come aboard the harvester, which included leaving Kao Chih behind. Perhaps it needed Kao Chih's honest reaction when the simulated droid ship had appeared, but that did not make him feel any better. Nor did it quell bis sense of unease. And why did the Legion droid refer to the mech as the Instrument?

'Nasty and well hidden,' Yash said at last, straightening. 'But how do I know you didn't put it in there yourselves?'

'Why should we?' the droid said. 'Why go to all the trouble? No, that's high-grade Legion work - not our methodology at all.'

Yash stared at Kao Chih. 'You said that this lot were from the Legion of . . . what was it?'

'Avatars,' Kao Chih said. 'Legion of Avatars . . .'

'Ah, I see,' said the droid on the monitor. 'I'm afraid you have been deceived - your mech companion is an Instrument of the Legion of Avatars while we are field armigers for the Construct...'

'What proof . .. can you offer?' Kao Chih said. 'Why should we take what you say at face value?'

'Why did you take what
that
machine said at face value?' the droid countered. 'Even its appearance is a fake ...'

'With respect,' he said, 'that is ridiculous.'

Yash laughed unkindly. 'Didn't you know that it was running a holoshell behind its forcefield? I was using my goggles in tandem with my wall sensors to study it, got a few outline scans and extrapolated a rough image . . .'

'Did it look anything like this?' An inset appeared on the monitor next to the hulking droid, showing a strange metallic object resembling a section of articulated limb with a joint halfway up its length. Seeing it, the Voth nodded.

'Yes, very similar, except that this one has two joints.' He squinted at the screen. 'What is this thing? Looks like a piece of something else.'

'It is,' the droid said. 'This is a limb from a cyborg creature, a Knight of the Legion of Avatars. A Knight cyborg is permeated with bio-cortical substrate so when they hive off parts of themselves they can imbue them with a version of their own personae. They possess organic sentience along with the attitudes and instincts of their progenitors, which is strictly in accordance with their creed. In the convergence of organic sentience and technology, the part shall reflect the whole.'

'Can they be killed?' Yash said, patting his plasma cannon.

'Most definitely,' the droid said. 'But not if we stand around here talking.'

'I'll get that autodestruct unpicked,' the Voth said, sitting down at the console. =

Kao Chih had listened in silence, absorbing the truth and feeling a horrible realisation. After the escape from the Chaurixa torture ship, he had been so determined to be done with being someone else's pawn or commodity, yet he had been Drazuma-Ha*'; willing dupe all along. His father was right - the hidden hand with its knife had been there from the start.

'When you reach Darien, I want to go with you,' he said to the droid.

'As you wish, Human. Just don't get in our way.'

'I won't, I give you my word. I just want to be there when you tear out whatever that treacherous machine uses for a heart.'

Yash looked up from his screen, chuckling. 'That's more like it, Human!'

In the stolen shuttle's cockpit, the Instrument patiently observed the console displays, overseeing the ship's progress through T2 hyperspace as it savoured the successful outcome of its deceptions and gambits. He had come so far in such a short span of time, from awakening underwater in the shadow of his mighty progenitor to this final stage of his momentous journey, having beguiled and outwitted all his adversaries. Even when the Chaurixa hijacker had taken them by surprise at Bryag Station and employed a stasis web, he had been able to divert all available resources to maintaining
a
hard holoshell while recovering various crashed subsystems preparatory to regaining full functionality. Another example of ingenious improvisation leading to success. And was that not because he was, in himself, an authentic replica of his exalted progenitor's instincts and craft and ingenuity?

Too soon for celebration,
said an admonitory inner voice.
Too far yet to travel, too much still to do, too many uncertainties and opponents to overcome. Focus on the task, enumerate resources, assess all likely risks and possibilities, generate tactical solutions that will support strategic aims.