Dreaming of Atmosphere (32 page)

“Seth! Wake up!” he said.

“Amright. Waddapened?” I had cotton mouth and my tongue was swollen.

“We’ve lost the aft cargo. We’re falling back to the forward hold. Denno is trapped inside. We can’t get back in to find him.”

“Gotta get him!”

Art turned and gave me an angry glare. “Did you not hear him? The hold is lost, we have to hold them here.”

“No, let me up. I’ll get him.” My head was clearing, fast. I could feel my nanites eating up the poison drifting through my blood.

“You’re mad. They’ll cut you down.”

“They can try. Hold this position.” I looked around and saw we’d moved into the forward cargo hold, as they said. We’d set up a secondary fortified position here, with several nests of cover leaving a wide killing ground before the hatch to the aft hold. I’d lost my carbine, so I drew my PX-2 with one hand and unsheathed my blade with the other. Already I could see a plasma cutter starting to work on the sealed aft cargo hatch.

Didn’t matter, I didn’t need to use the hatch anyway.

I ran towards the bulkhead, and leapt at it, activating my Spatial Translation again. This time it felt different, as I moved through 5
th
or 6
th
dimensional space. I slipped through the bulkhead molecules like they were nothing but a wall of confetti. I popped out the other side short of breath and my head spinning again. I looked around and saw that I was exposed, but the synthetics hadn’t spotted me yet. There was seven assault robots and the large one waiting to get through the hatch, while a flyer worked a cutting torch.

I took aim with my PX-2 and shot the flyer square in the chassis, blowing it into pieces. As one the synthetics turned and fired, and several shots hammered into my shield. I dived to the side and rolled, coming to rest against a cargo container. A dark shape suddenly blocked the bright lights overhead and I saw the big synthetic flying through the air, both claws bunched into fists ready to pound me in to pulp. No such luck.

I teleported to the top of the container, and rolled to my feet and dashed aft towards the rear where I last saw Denno running for cover. I picked him up immediately, his wireframe outline appearing in my Tactical App, linked up to my overlay as he was. I leapt over another container but had to teleport across a large open gap to another side. He was prone, and wasn’t moving, but my overlay listed him as unconscious only. A tranq-drone must have gotten him too. I looked around for more of the drones, but it looked like we’d managed to take care of all the flyers and drones.

I looked behind me and saw the last cargo container I’d jumped from suddenly get shoved aside as the large synthetic barged through it. This thing wasn’t going to let up. I took aim and fired a double tap at the thing’s optical sensors, managing to pop one. It continued its charge and would have smashed me off the cargo container if I didn’t translate to another one. I took aim again while it looked about in confusion and shot another optical sensor. That appeared to madden it further. It flailed about, tearing crates free and sending them flying. It tossed one directly at me, but I jumped aside and took a running leap across to another container roof. I fired from the hip but missed hitting a sensor.

“Come on, you metal bastard!” I called, firing at the thing repeatedly as it hunkered over towards me. I hit another sensor and it whirled about in confusion. There weren’t too many more left. It had to cant itself sidewise to see straight ahead, and I started to strafe the thing keeping to its blinded side.

It started to twirl and spin, swinging wildly about. I timed my move and slid in under its reach and slashed with my blade into its knee joint, severing a cable of some kind. Sparks flew from the joint, showering me with hot metal swarf. I translated back out of reach and watched it tetter about on its damaged leg. I shot out another sensor and kept moving. It seemed to be slowing down so I turned and ran back towards Denno.

I jumped down onto the deck beside his comatose form and sent my Repair nanites into his body. With luck, it will wake him up sooner. I scooped him up into a fireman’s carry. He was heavy, most Argen are stockier than humans, with heavier bones. I stumbled a few times before I had his weight balanced, then started to thread my way forward towards the forward cargo hold bulkhead. When I got to the wall, I could see the synthetics had broken through and made their way into the next compartment.

“Tac! Show me the forward cargo hold!”

A camera image appeared in my overlay showing me the compartment. Art and Hergo had fallen back as the synthetics had moved in under fire. Somehow the synthetics had managed to avoid the fire from pair, and had used the opening to rush the duo. I could see the remains of one synthetic scattered about by the aft bulkhead. They’d hit one at least.

I noticed that Hergo wasn’t returning fire, he must have depleted his last battery. There were six synthetics still attacking, using the cover left behind by Art and Hergo. I slipped Denno to the deck and propped him against a crate. He was beginning to stir. I checked my charge levels in my overlay, I was still only just below half. Plenty of juice to finish this. I ran towards the open hatch and counted to three. I was just about to swing around and open up on the synthetics’ exposed backs, when the ship lurched to the side suddenly. I was thrown off my feet and a loose crate crashed into me, knocking the wind out of me. I scrambled to my feet, wheezing for air. What the hell was that?

“Bridge! Report!”

Drones!
Came Fel’negr’s text.
That one shell that didn’t have guidance? It burst a few minutes ago directly ahead of us and it had a swarm of drones in it. Zoe’s doing her best, but we’re taking fire.

I could suddenly hear a scattering of blasts strike the hull, but I couldn’t hear the tell-tale whistle of a hull breach. I caught my breath and peered around the hatch into the forward cargo, only to see the last few synthetics scamper up the ladder well to Deck 2.

What the hell? Why isn’t the mess deck hatch sealed?
I texted to everyone.

The hatch has malfunctioned, Acting Captain Donovan.
Reported Tac.
5 synthetics have reached Deck 2 and are proceeding aft towards Central Control.

A malfunctioning hatch? Now? I thought about chewing out Mal, since it his job was internal maintenance, but thought better of it. He’d been through enough already, and his added workload since Eric died probably forced him to prioritise his tasks. Things break. Deal with it later. I ran towards the ladder well, firing my PX-2 trying to hit the last synthetic, but didn’t manage to score any hits.

Art popped her head out from cover and almost shot me, but saw who it was and got up to join me.

“Get Denno! He’s just near the hatch!” I called. I had to text the rest of the message as I was out of earshot.
The big synthetic is nearly blind in the middle of the aft hold if you want to finish it off.

I do. Thanks, loverboy xx

I poked my head over the top of the ladder well and saw the synthetics moving aft. I sprang up and moved quickly to cover and fired into the rear of the last two robots. One had no shield and was shot to pieces by my first two rounds, but the others were dissipated by the shield of the second. It turned to shoot, but I’d already ducked behind the crate. I translated to the other side of the compartment and fired repeatedly at the synthetic that I was now flanking. Just like the others, it couldn’t comprehend what had happened and didn’t move to defend itself. In moments it was nothing more than a pile of smouldering spare parts.

I swung down the passageway and ran after the others, firing a shot at the disappearing form of the 3
rd
last synthetic. I hit its shield but it took off around a corridor bend. I kept running and come around the corner and was hit in the face by a metal appendage. I recoiled and fell backwards as the synthetic swung another blow at me. I raised my sword to catch the strike, and kicked its legs out from under it. As it fell and tried to right itself I leaped up and went to chop downward at the robot. It caught my stroke on its shoulder and lost an arm, but managed to get itself up. It fired its good arm at me, which still had the energy weapon on it. I spun aside and swung my sword as I twirled, bringing it down across the neck joint. The head unit flew aside, smashing into the bulkhead. The headless, one armed synthetic flailed about firing randomly for a few seconds then collapsed. I saw the last two synthetics disappear around the next bend. The Central Control compartment was just around that corner.

I took off at a run once more, then teleported to the bend, firing as soon as I appeared. As before, there was a synthetic waiting to delay me, but I appeared past the corner and was on the far side of the bend. It fired at the empty space as I fire directly into the droid’s torso. Its shield had failed in the previous gunfight, and I made short work of the lightly armoured unit. The last synthetic had already gone into the engineering control room.

I peered around the corner and yelled out for Mal.

“I’m here!” I could hear him, from the upper mezzanine. He was crouched behind a flow control console. Below him was the last synthetic, an interface cable had telescoped out of its left arm and into the propulsion control console. We were too late! All it had to do was send a single command and it could lock us out of the engines. We could undo the work, but the lost acceleration would mean the end of us.

But I could still hear the engines thrumming steadily.

As I approached the last synthetic it made no move to defend itself. It just stood there, one arm outstretched to the console, a black cable connected to a hard line access port.

“What the…” I asked no one in particular/

Do not be alarmed, Acting Captain Donovan. The synthetic has been infected with a virus I planted in the console to prevent direct unauthorised access.

“Tac! Brilliant! Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked, jubilantly.

I did. I wrote the virus when I calculated their chances of reaching Central Control at being higher than 74%.

“When was that?”

17.3 seconds ago.

“You just wrote a virus that could undo a synthetic AI? A military grade synthetic AI? In less than twenty seconds?”

Correct. It was only a rudimentary virus, I only had to cause it to shut itself down. There was no permanent damage to the synthetic’s programing and will be fully functional if manually activated again.

I shot the synthetic in the head, then cut the cable loose with my sword.

38.

I didn’t have long to catch my breath. No sooner had I cleared the last synthetic from the engineering room then I heard the clanging bangs of drone fire hit the outer hull once more. I sighed and headed for the command module.

Zoe and Fel were in the middle of an argument when I arrived.

“…we’ll lose too much speed, we can’t evade!” Fel was explaining.

“I can’t shake them, they’re boxing us in. If I don’t manoeuvre again they could take out our propulsion or worse.”

“It’s too risky, we
have
to trust the point defences will do their job.”

“What’s the situation?” I asked as I threw myself down into the captain’s chair.

“The unguided shell went on ahead after it went wide, and we almost forgot about it until it popped open and deployed ten drones. They waited until we were near enough and then attacked. Tac destroyed two so far with those point defences we bolted to the outer hull, but we’ve taken some damage.”

“Any breaches?”

“Three, all minor. Your cabin took one, the starboard nacelle took the other two. Mal has the nacelle isolated and airtight. Your cabin door is leaking a little oh two, but life support is handling the pressure with no problems.”

“Show me the drones, Tac.”

My console showed a radar display and an optical video side by side, with the swarm of drones framed by red squares. They’d broken up into three separate groups, and were heading towards us from the rear in a juking motion. I could see bright streams of small arms fire rippling towards them, but they were too far away for accurate attacks. They appeared to be hesitating, probably calculating our point defence fields of fire before making an attack run again.

“Did we ever get that last interceptor working?” I asked.

“No, Mal reports that it’ll need some specialised components to get functional again.”

“Yeah didn’t think so. Okay, looks like they’re gearing up for another attack run.”

“We need to start manoeuvring again.” said Zoe.

“No, Fel was right. We can’t afford to shed any more speed. Where did we mount the Rotary Cannon?”

The synthetic wielding the Rotary Cannon was attached to the outer hull above the command deck, 3 metres aft of the beamer.

“Thanks, Tac. Okay, when they start their next run, we’re going to angle the ship north ninety degrees, and engage manoeuvring thrusters on the upper hull…thrusters twelve through fifteen. Disengage the ion drive before we tilt, and give us point five gees of burn on the thrusters. Tac, can you track which direction the largest number of drones pass us on, and provide tilting directions to Zoe as they go pass so that we continue to present our upper hull to them?”

Certainly, that will ensure we give the Rotary Cannon maximum time to engage the drones.

“I don’t know if I’m up to it, those sound like some pretty precise manoeuvres…” said Zoe.

“Precise movements are what you’re good at, Zoe. Just like surgery or repairing cybernetics, just keep your hands firm, but not tight on the controls and ease into the turns.”

“Seth is right, Ms Ward. This is child’s play compared to some of the things I’ve seen you do with your hands. Focus on the controls and the instrument readings, ignore the visuals and the optical sensors.”

“Okay.”

“And remember to breathe. Just like I showed you.”

Zoe started to breathe deeply and exhale through her mouth in long sighs. I could see her calming already.

The drones are beginning another attack run.

“Okay, disengage Ion Drives, point us at north nine zero.” I said.

“Ion drive disengaged, turning north.”

“Too far, bring us back down ten degrees.”

“There. Burning manoeuvring thrusters twelve through fifteen. Point five gee thrust.”

“Good job, that’s spot on.”

“Here they come.” reported Fel.

Rotary Cannon firing, tracking fire.

I could see a steady stream of fire spewing forth from the Dreaming. At first it was a steady rhythm of fire, but in seconds it sped up as the cannon’s barrel spun up to speed. The line of fire was almost a continuous beam as the drones got close enough for accurate fire. Tac stitched the beam onto the closest trio of drones, and the rapid fire tore into the first one and it disappeared in a burst of fast moving debris. The second and third we hammered into pieces seconds after the first went. Tac shifted fire to the next trio, but the drones had gone into rapid spiral patterns to evade the fire. Tac started to spray a pattern of fire into the swarm, and it wasn’t long before a bright flash and scattering components told us another drone was destroyed. The remaining four reached us and their small weapons spewed out bright green flashes and rapid projectiles raced towards us.

“Hold position!” I called as Zoe instinctively started to swerve the ship to avoid the fire. Her slight movement caused the Rotary Cannon to become even more inaccurate and the drones started to overtake us. The rapid hammering of their shots could clearly be heard in the compartments behind us.

On Zoe’s display appeared a series of turning instructions and a visual indicator. Zoe started to follow the commands. She was fairly close, but her inexperience was clear. She overshot the turn and we lose acceleration as we veered off course. She also forgot to shut down the thrusters and we lost a few gees of thrust for a few seconds before I overrode the controls and re-engaged the Ion Drive.

One of the side mounted synthetic chassis’ managed to hit another drone and it spiralled out of control spewing random shots from its weapon.

“Damage report!” I called.

“Hull breach detected in the command deck passageway. Mal is sealing the Deck 2 ladder well.”

The Rotary Cannon has been destroyed.

“Damn. How is life support handling the breach?”

The breach will require sealing within 9 minutes 47 seconds before the passageway becomes unable to support life.

“Okay, I’m sending Hergo up to work on it.” I grabbed the PA mic, “Hergo! Hull breach in Deck 1 passageway. Get on it!”

“Drones are coming about, another attack run!” reported Fel.

I gripped the console before me, and sent my nanites into the system as I started the interface program that Tac gave me. As before, dark organic cables grew out of my arms into the console, pulsing with a dark green energy. I gasped as my senses were nearly overloaded. Before when I’d done this, all I had access to was the optical sensors, but now I had the whole gamut of sensors at my disposal.

How can one explain it? It was like opening my eyes for the first time. I could see and sense so many different bandwidths of light, read radio and radar pulses, I knew where everything was within several hundred thousand kilometres at once. I could feel every pit and every scar on the ship, I could feel the steady thrum of her ion drives pushing us ever forward. I could control every aspect of the ship at once. I
was
the ship.

The drones were ahead of me, braking hard and swivelling on their axis to bring their weapons to bare. As the first shots left their barrels I saw which way they were headed and with a minor effort of will put the ship into a spin that caused all the shots to miss us. As the drones had shed enough speed, they sped past us again. I ignited the manoeuvring thrusters as they passed, spinning the ship in a sudden spiral and knocked two drones with the trailing edge of the aft cargo hold. They fell apart as if they were nothing but snowflakes.

The last one turned about and accelerated hard, and in that brief moment when our speeds were equal relative to each other, Tac let loose with several blasts from a pair of P291 point defences. It exploded in a flameless burst of components and gases.

I slumped back in the chair, suddenly yanked free of the intoxicating power of being one with the ship. My mind was aflame with possibilities and sensations. I was dimly aware of Zoe climbing over her seat to get to me, and Fel was holding me down as I flopped and spasmed about. I couldn’t bring my mind back into my body. I couldn’t control my own senses! I was lost in my madness and everything vanished in an exploding cacophony of sounds and a blinding flash of light. Then there was darkness.