The Lazarus War: Artefact (34 page)

—twisted metal spars above me. Blackened by the intensity of the explosion. Difficult to discern what those were; whether they had once been part of the window structure or whether the diamond-tread pattern meant that they had been part of the floor—

I shouted, calling to Martinez. The crawler continued rocking. My voice sounded alien, distorted by static.

“Martinez! Get back here and turn off the antenna!”

—a voice rang out, loud and clear, from somewhere outside of the wreckage:
“
A curfew is in effect. Please return to your homes. A curfew is in effect. Alliance Army soldiers are inbound for your protection
”
—

Martinez shifted in his seat, turning his enormously muscled neck to look at me. His face was covered in cuneiform tattoos, dripping from his eyes like the blood from Jenkins’ mouth.

“Martinez, get that communicator turned off!”

“
When you’re here, all you want is to be back out there!
”

I jolted awake, screaming Martinez’s name. The whine of the Artefact’s call still touched my mind, reluctantly receding as I woke up.

The crawler had hit solid ground. It kept moving, continued forwards, but very slowly. A regular crunching sounded from somewhere below – the grind of metal on metal.

Martinez was howling – either in frustration or elation. But the scene inside the crawler wasn’t from my vision: the interior cabins were intact. I was pressed up against Jenkins’ armoured body. She peeled me off her, and slowly evaluated me. She stared at the middle-distance of her face-plate; considering my bio-signs on her HUD. Her face was painted with holo-projections from inside her helmet.

“I – I blacked out,” I stammered.

“You’ll survive,” Jenkins declared. “No internal damage. Or nothing new, anyway.”

I stumbled back from her. “And you?”

She grinned. “I was born dead.”

A trio of stingers protruded from her left thigh, already streaming ugly black fluid. The ammo had punctured her combat-suit, polluting her bloodstream with whatever toxins this Krell Collective used. She brusquely plucked the stingers from her leg. It didn’t seem to hurt Jenkins, but it made me squirm. She must’ve suffered the injuries back in the cavern, had simply fought on through them.

“Thanks for the save.”

“Anytime,” Jenkins said.

“The crawler is wasted,” Martinez said. “Trans-axle is blown.” That crunching noise became louder, unhealthier. “These maps are sketchy, but we’re pretty deep underground now. No way I can repair the crawler in these conditions.” The transport ground to an abrupt stop. Something mechanical hissed outside – hydraulics or maybe steering, it didn’t matter what. “But the Krell have let up. The scanner is clear.”

This was the moment of truth. I listened for the chime of an incoming comm message. Then I expectantly looked over the faces of Martinez and Jenkins. If Kellerman executed them, they’d drop dead in the crawler – the neural-link between sim and operator immediately severed. A few seconds passed: nothing. Jenkins looked back at me, frowning, confused by my behaviour.

“It’s all right, Jenkins,” I said. “I have a plan, or as close to a plan as I can get. Martinez, what’s the comms mast status?”

He ran a check on the crawler systems. “Non-operational. No contact with Helios Station. The radio mast was also damaged during the attack.”

“Good. What about suit relays back to the station?”

“Also negative. They were set up to relay through the crawler antenna. Without the mast, they can’t broadcast.”

“So we’re out of contact with Helios Station?”

“Far as I can tell.”

Jenkins crossed her arms over her chest. She had every right to be suspicious. “What’s this all about?”

“I needed to be sure that we were out of communication with the station. I wish that I could’ve told you earlier, but I have important intel. Kellerman and Deacon are Directorate. And Kellerman has a starship.”

Jenkins’ eyes widened.

“It’s a Directorate Interceptor. High-end, black ops stuff.”

“That asshole,” Martinez said, pounding a fist into the empty navigator’s seat.

I gestured with my hand for Martinez to calm. “Easy, Martinez. He has the ship stowed in the lab module. Looks almost brand new, with a full complement of air-to-ground warheads.”

“Does it have a Q-drive?” Jenkins asked.

“It does. Tyler showed it to me.”

“Does she know how to fly it? Is the ship working?” Jenkins went on. “Can we use it to get off this rock?”

“Affirmative on all counts.”

“Fucking A!” Martinez said.

“You’ve got to get to that starship.”

“What about you?” Jenkins asked. “The tunnels are sealed. There’s no way that we can follow you down here.”

“I took a risk, Jenkins. There was no other way to break comms with Helios Station. Right now, Kellerman probably thinks that we’re on our way to the Artefact – that I’m executing his orders. So long as he thinks that, we’re safe, and I hope that Kaminski and Tyler are too.

“I won’t be leaving Helios without the Key. On the Shard ship, Kellerman showed me a star-map. The Shard, whatever they were, knew the Maelstrom well. They had plotted stable Q-jump points. They knew how to avoid the solar storms. The Key contains the star-data.

“We’re going to get off Helios. So here’s what we’re going to do. Sooner or later, you’re both going to have to make extraction. These tunnels are going to be swarming with Krell, once that storm develops. After you make extraction, overwhelm security, evac Helios Station and pick me up.”

Martinez gave a bitter laugh. “You make it sound simple. But where are we going to evac you from, Cap? The tunnels are blown. There’s no way we could fight our way through these caves skinless.”

“Use the ship. Pick me up from high ground, somewhere you can find me easily.”

Martinez and Jenkins traded looks. They had guessed exactly what I was suggesting, and from the expressions on their faces, they didn’t think much of the idea. Martinez punched some keys on the crawler control console, casting up a wireframe holo in pale green light.

“I don’t think that you will want to be going anywhere near the high ground, Captain,” he said sombrely. “I think that you’ll want to avoid that completely.”

The holo rotated, showing the Artefact and the surrounding sectors. If Kellerman was right about the tunnel network, it would lead us – me – directly to the foot of the Artefact, on high ground overlooking the desert.

A desert swarming with Krell of every conceivable type …

I nodded. “Maybe in other circumstances, but now it’s the perfect cover. Local comms will likely be obliterated in nearby regions. I’ll have the Key, and you can use the Artefact as a beacon for navigation.”

I tried to make it sound nice and easy, as though it was a simple rescue operation. I left aside that there were an impossible series of variables: such as whether the team would be killed on extraction, whether they would be able to overpower the guards at Helios Station, whether they would actually be able to pilot the Directorate ship cross-country, in a storm, to the foot of the Artefact—

“If all else fails, retrieve the Key. Take it back to Command and make sure that they send a rescue party – for Elena.”

“Not necessary. You’re going to be fine,” Jenkins said. She just couldn’t accept the finality of it all.

I shook my head. “This might not be about me any more.”

“What about Kellerman?” Martinez said. “You really think that he will leave you alone down here? He might send troops after you.”

“Fine; the more personnel he has out in the desert looking for me, the less he has on-station guarding you when you extract. You’ve seen how few people he has left. Ten or so security troops? I don’t think that he will send anybody. He won’t want to risk his own skin, and for all he knows I’m doing just what he ordered. Let’s hope that Kaminski has made extraction safely.”

“I can’t believe we’ve lost him,” Jenkins said, shaking her head. “But there were so many of them out there.”

No post-extraction debrief, this time.

Martinez slammed a fist across his heart, the heavy gauntlet thumping against his ablative chest armour. “Christo watch over him. We’ll have a full prayer later.”

“See you on the other side, ’Ski,” Jenkins added.

I didn’t have that luxury, but I hoped that she was right.
With Kaminski dead, I’m a step closer to having to fight through this thing on my own, in my own skin
. Eventually, every simulant operator developed the same dread: of being forced to fight in their own imperfect, natural body. Right now, Kaminski might be doing just that – back on Helios Station. And I was too, but in the darkened tunnels beneath Helios’ desert.

“So what do we do now?” Jenkins asked.

“We just keep going. What’s our distance to the Artefact?”

Martinez consulted the crawler controls. “A kilometre, I guess. But these tunnels – they aren’t properly mapped.”

The idea of traversing a kilometre through the caves filled me with anxiety. Self-belief, and the lack of any viable alternative strategy, was all that kept me going.

“There’s no other way,” I said, trying to explain myself to my team. “If I stay in the tunnels, the Krell will come sooner or later. At least if I make it through, I’ll be in a better position for evac. Don’t get me wrong, Martinez. I don’t want this to happen. I know there are no guarantees out there.”

They fell silent for a long moment. I just couldn’t see any other way through this, and whatever happened I knew I couldn’t leave the Key. I craved for the information that it carried, wanted it even more than the next transition. Any risk, any gamble, had to be worth taking if there was even the slightest chance that I’d make it off Helios with the star-data.

“Are you absolutely solid that you want to go through with this?” Jenkins asked. “There has to be something else that we can do—”

“There isn’t. If this works, I can escape with the Key – with the star-data. If it doesn’t, then you can escape with the star-data. That’s all that matters now.”

“All right, Cap,” Jenkins said with a solemn nod. “Whatever you want.”

Martinez sighed and nodded in agreement too.

“Then stock up on ammo,” I said. “Gather all the supplies we can carry. We’ll cover the distance on foot. That cavern back there isn’t going to stay sealed for ever. We’ve got to move fast.”

I unsealed an ammo crate and strapped spare power cells onto my H-suit, for the PPG-13 pistol. The others followed my example. Jenkins shouldered the remaining demo-charges and flamer cells. Martinez loaded up on grenades.

I did a final check on our supplies, and then turned to the team. They were hyped-up, a curious mixture of anticipation and reluctance.

Jenkins did a motherly check over my environment suit, making sure I had my oxygen tank and water supply. I was too tired to argue with her. I bit my lip as she patted down the leg panels. Just the touch of her hand through the fabric against my injury was enough to send a jolt of pain through me. Then she checked on the connecting piping for my respirator mask. Away from the airborne dust particles of the desert, the atmosphere was an easier breathe, but there was a danger of atmospheric toxicity from the weaponry we carried. Jenkins’ flamer could contaminate a whole cavern with burning material.

“Everything looks sound,” she said. “Wear your helmet for extra protection. You need some more painkillers before we go?”

“I’ve finished everything that Kellerman left for me,” I said, jerking a thumb at the empty lockers.

All that was left was the Key. I grasped the box in which it was housed, and flipped open the catches. I took it out, turning it over in my hands. It felt unusually heavy, unnaturally cold. I slipped it into a tool holster on my suit belt.

Martinez unsealed the hatch. He took point, with me next and Jenkins at the rear.

The crawler was thoroughly wasted. Exposed metalwork was twisted and decayed; huge acid-drenched holes bored into the armour plating. Stinger-spines pierced the roof. The gun-turrets poured thick, black smoke.

“I’ll miss the old bitch,” Martinez said.

We moved as quickly as possible through a series of narrower passes. Always in single file, with weapons panning every shadow and crevice. It was utterly dark, save for the occasional flash of some alien insect scuttling around on the floor. Martinez and Jenkins acted as my eyes. I considered what they saw: using the full sensory suite of the combat-suit, the assistance of an onboard AI. They had been forced to deactivate their suit camouflage systems, because otherwise they would have been effectively invisible to me. My H-suit carried a small and ineffectual shoulder-lamp – mounted just below the camera – but it was weak, and didn’t illuminate any more than a few feet ahead of me. I prayed for an HUD, for some proper tactical information.

I checked the clock, set into the rim of my helmet so that I could see it from inside the suit. Fourteen hours had elapsed since I had awoken in the sand-crawler. In different circumstances, that would be the mission timeline. Now, it felt like every passing second was living on borrowed time. Something squirmed in my gut – either fear, or perhaps hunger. I hadn’t eaten since we had left Helios Station. I hadn’t felt like it, but Kellerman hadn’t stocked the crawler with rations anyway.

You don’t have a plan
, a voice whispered in my ear.
You have nothing. Just give up now – there’s no point in carrying on like this
.

I scrambled over rocks as Martinez and Jenkins effortlessly stalked alongside me. They didn’t experience hunger and they didn’t tire.

“Terrain opening up,” Martinez declared. “Another big cave.”

I tuned up the amplification on my audio sensors and used them to guess the size of the chamber by the
drip-dripping
of water in the distance; moisture trickling from above. I had to rely on my ears over my eyes now.

Martinez held up a hand – a blurred shape ahead of me. He fell into a crouched bracing position. Something had changed; the tone of the dripping had shifted, become harsher.

“Cap, you’ll want to see this,” he muttered.

“Defensive positions. Jenkins, cover our retreat.”

“Affirmative, Captain,” Jenkins replied. Unspoken: “
like it will do us any good
.”

I staggered ahead to Martinez’s location. He fell back to meet me, guiding me by the elbow. I wanted to shrug him off, to quarrel with him that I wasn’t an invalid, but one look out into the darkness made me think twice about that.

I’m becoming Kellerman. We’re both broken
.

I sniggered to myself. Back at Helios Station, he had warned me that he and I had more in common than I might think. I was reacting just as he would.

“Leave me, Martinez. I can do this.”

“All right. I’ll light us up.”

Martinez took some flares from his armour webbing. He activated them one at a time, and tossed them into the cavern. They fizzled bright red and green, illuminating a large area in fitful multi-coloured light. The experience was strangely disorienting: I could suddenly see again, although the cave was so vast that I couldn’t tell where it ended. I blinked against the bright light.