The Saffron Malformation (106 page)

             
“I’ll be on my way,” he barked.

             
The doors across the room were beginning to warp around the top edges.  Quey’s eyes widened when he spotted the massive sawing device burst through at the upper right hand corner and begin to cut downward.  The left corner followed shortly after.  The soldiers around the room readied their guns.  It wouldn’t be long now.

             
“How long till these robots show up?” Carmen barked.

             
“They’re not really robots,” Ryla replied.

             
“No time for semantics,” Quey told her.

             
She looked at him and nodded a bit.  “Not long now.  We need to start loading into the ship.”

             
“We’ll give you cover,” Carmen assured Ryla, Quey, and the others.

             
Rachel stepped forward and said, “You can just come with us.”

             
She watched the tools cutting through the door and said, “No we can’t.”  Then she turned to Rachel and added, “You’re brother’ll be moving to this position.  When they come through those doors we’ll have ‘em in a crossfire.  Mission was to get you to this ship so you could take it to the sky, but there’s a great many more to come after.  Jobs that can’t be finished from space… even if you don’t blow up trying to get there.”

             
Ryla looked up from her device and noted, softly, “Time to go.”

             
Outside there was a low rumble and then a shriek of metal and vibrations shook the air.  Something crashed into the island.  Natalie was herding Amber and Leone onto the ship with Arnie following slowly, he wasn’t sure if the feeling in his hands and feet were nerves or the liquid in his bottle taking hold.

             
The doors were beginning to come down.  Blue Moon security tossed a pair of grenades in through the opened section of the door and the soldiers moved to cover.

             
“Go,” Carmen barked.

             
Ryla and Rachel started up the ramp and onto the ship with Quey following behind.  Once inside it hit him.  He’d never been to outer space.  For a great many of the populations of other planets it was nothing of note but to him… his hands were shaking.

             
They gathered at the nose of the ship.  Arnie went to the chair in the center of the small room and shrugged off his bag.  “Won’t take but a set of ticks,” he said and began flipping switches.  The engines came to life with a sudden clank and then a dull hum followed.

             
Natalie strapped the kids into seats near the sides of the room, somewhat oval in shape, before taking one of the seats nearest them.  Rachel found a place nearer the front.  She wanted to see, though she couldn’t say why.

             
“I’m going to go make sure the systems are running okay,” Ryla said and started for the door.

             
“You can’t be walking around until we break atmo,” Arnie told her.

             
“Be sure to engage the gravitational stabilizer,” she told him plainly.

             
“Of course,” he barked before adding, “But still.  It’s not a good idea to just wander.”

             
“I’m not,” she said.  “And anyway, I have my boots,” she replied with a shrug before she spun on her heels and disappeared out the door.

             
Gunfire cracked like fireworks in the distance as the ship began to rise up toward the launch tube.  From one of the tiny oval windows Quey watched as a firefight began in the hangar below and then another of those massive electronic bellows issued and vibrated through the ship.

             
“Everyone strapped and ready?” Arnie shouted.

             
Quey took a seat near the window and strapped himself in.

             
The ship rumbled for the better part of a minute before Arnie pulled a lever back and sent Quey’s stomach end over end.  He’d gone fast before, been on plenty of rollercoaster’s in his day, even been outside a train going 800 kilometers an hour, but he wasn’t prepared for this.

             
As the ship left the launch tube and streaked out into the sky Rachel leaned over the arm of her chair and vomited.  Quey looked at her, then at the others and said, “Right.  Maybe not my best idea.”

             
The ship banked hard in a direction Quey couldn’t identify and his vision clouded.  He almost lost it all over himself.  When the ship straitened and his body caught up to the speed he took a few deep breaths and said, “Definitely had better,” as his vision began to clear.

             
Looking through his window he saw the island below.  Sacks of flesh and metal walking on a multitude of legs filed onto the beach across the island, opposite the loading docks.  Each one had to be the size of an elephant and he realized that they might have been once, but these were far less clumsy and a deal deadlier.  Other, smaller creatures poured from the mouth of something whose head was lying on the beach while its body remained mostly under the water.  Creatures spread across the beach like a tide.  As they gained altitude, Quey could see the shape of the creature in the water as a shadow under the waves.  It was bigger than the island.

             
What the hell have we done, Quey wondered to himself as the ship raced ever upward and he saw what they’d let loose on the world.

             
Ryla kept in contact with the soldiers on the ground.  She’d taken the time to link into their devices and activate their camera feeds.  She used her sheet to keep track of what was happening down there.

             
When Eric Hoss arrived at the hanger he found Carmen and her remaining soldiers pinned down near the launch pad.  What Carmen claimed about that situation proved true, however, and the two sides easily gunned down the Blue Moon security forces standing between them.

             
They settled in for a spell and waited to be sure no stragglers were looking to pop up with a surprise, then gathered and hurried toward the docks.  They made it to the main corridor before spotting one of the things from the forth basement.

             
Ryla sat up a bit and scanned through the cameras.  She knew what they looked like, a combination of metal and flesh, knew also that each was different in its own way.  Some were larger, some had more legs or arms than others.  Some had distinctive faces and mouths, others had eyeballs sunk deep in sockets and teeth that jutted from around a gaping hole.  What she was curious to see was what they would do.  How would they function?

             
Eric and his men weren’t planning to fight these things, whatever they may be.  Instead they chose to live, and that meant running.  All Ryla could see was the jostling of cameras.  Every once in a while she’d see one stabilize but by the time she flipped to it the feed was gone or motionless.  Even when she switched to Carmen’s.  She saw Eric linger for a moment, watching until a series of crunching sounds came through her speaker.  Then he turned and ran, a meager dozen of his original eighty-four men following his lead.

             
The ship began to shake for a split and then the tone of everything changed.  She felt nothing save the gravitational stabilizers holding her down and thought, ‘hmm, this is space.’

And I Mean to Have Another

             
Saffron was in chaos.  The alarms had come through Blue Moon headquarters in Saffron City one by one and then the communication network crashed, leaving them not only in chaos but in the dark as well.  They were in the middle of that when someone brought streaming video from the signal to their attention.  Creatures from the robotics compound were tearing across the planet.  Eventually it became clear they were heading for military targets but it seemed they didn’t mind making stops along the way.  Any building registered to Blue Moon seemed to be a target and without the communication network running, it was impossible to coordinate evacuations or rescue.

             
Richter Crow stood in a room under Blue Moon headquarters and watched helplessly as his orders were carried out as best they could be.

             
“What is that?” Richter asked with a furrowed brow as he watched one of the many dots floating around his massive three dimensional globe grow further and further from the ground.

             
Men exchanged glances and finally someone said, “It’s a boogie flying at high altitude.”

             
“Just how high?” he inquired.

             
The man looked over the numbers and his jaw slacked.  “Seems it’s about to leave the atmosphere.”

             
Richter chuckled under his breath and said, “Fucking bitch.  I was too good to you.”

             
Space was different than he’d expected, though to be honest Quey wasn’t sure what he had expected.  He just knew when he got there, this wasn’t it.  If he had to guess he supposed he’d expected blackness but it wasn’t there.  Blackness was something.  Space was a vast stretch of nothing.  You could see farther than you could imagine, a distance beyond any your eyes could cover on the planets surface was perfectly clear out there.  His stomach turned as he looked out at it, and the world he’d spent his life inhabiting moving steadily away.  Ahead was the moon, but beyond that there was nothing but specks of light and the occasional cluster of gases.  You could see the stars from the ground, true enough, but there they were part of the sky.  Out here you could see the spaces between.

             
Somewhere out there was the bridge they’d take to another world, one not owned and operated by Blue Moon, but he couldn’t see any of that.  All he saw were dots in the nothingness.

             
His hands trembled.

             
His heart raced.

             
He almost threw up.

             
“The captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign,” Arnie said as he turned his chair away from the controls and stood.  “You are now free to move about the cabin and get drunk,” he finished as he snatched up his bag and started away.

             
“Hold up,” Quey began.

             
“Told you I’d get you off the world,” he said listlessly.  “I set the autopilot to take you straight to the bridge, about two days that’a’ways,” he pointed past the front of the ship.  “When you see the moon along the side you’ll have two hours to hack and upload whatever you like before you’re out of range.  That’s plenty of time ahead where you don’t need me.”

             
Quey watched him go, and he felt sad for him.  Outside the windows of this ship was the most terrifying and amazing thing he’d ever seen, but Arnie didn’t care.  Quey wasn’t even sure he saw it.

             
“What now?” Natalie asked.

             
“Now,” Quey began but found his voice absent so he started again.  “Now we get settled and wait for that moon to pass so we can set to accomplishing what it is we came all this way for.”

             
The ship had been stocked and designed to transport over thirty rich and powerful people comfortably, even by their standards, so it held the seven of them quite nicely.  Everyone had their own space and eventually they’d have their own areas of the ship.  That was good, for everyone to have some space of their own, because they’d be on this ship for quite some time.  Though there would be ports along the way it’d be a long journey across a number of bridges before they made it to a world they could settle on.  If they even meant to settle.

             
Ryla was already taking over the core of the ship, Quey found.  She was down in the belly of it, where the engine room and machine shops were located, looking for spare parts she might use to build something new.  He stood in the door watching her hips sway gently in the long skirt and tank top she’d changed into after breaking atmo.  It hugged her just right and he smiled as he gazed at the curvy parts of her and the way she moved them as she danced.

             
Amber and Leone entered the corridor behind him and he felt like a kid caught doing something he shouldn’t.  He must have looked that way too because they exchanged a glance and smirk before continuing along heavy footed. Ryla stopped and looked over at them.

             
Quey watched them move to the door and asked, “What brings the two of you down here?”

             
“We found something,” Leone said, a bit of excitement in his voice.  It was good to hear that tone again.  He’d gained it back when they left orbit and he knew they’d won.  His father, Richter Crow, wouldn’t be able to hide for long.  Looking out at the stars he’d said, ‘We won.’  Space was so beautiful, if his mother and his mom were anywhere at all it would be together out here.

             
“What cha got there?” Quey asked the boy.

             
Leone might have said something but Amber interrupted, “It’s for Ryla.”

             
Ryla cocked her head and peered at them with blank curiosity.  They went to her and held out a large black case.  When she took it Amber was grinning and said, “We found a whole closet full of these near the activity rooms, I guess they planned to have children on board or something.”  Quey shifted his weight when he saw Ryla open the case and peer inside.  Her eyes lit up and she looked at the pair.  Then something happened that shocked everyone in the room, even Ryla.  She leapt forward and hugged them, one in each arm, and she did it without asking if she was supposed to first.  Quey smiled as he watched her grin.

             
She’d taken it for granted, all those years alone in the compound, and she’d come up with a number of logical reasons for every stroke of her brush, but the truth was she really loved to paint.  Inside the case was everything she’d need to make her own colors along with an array of brushes.

             
Quey smiled when he saw what they’d found and said, “That’s good.  You get to it too.  Might need another crazy idea someday.”

             
Rachel found a place for herself because it was something to do.  There was a corridor off the main area of the ship, where the holoscreen and kitchen and dinning area were located, and she decided that was as good a place as any.  She took to a room and lay back on the bed.  Just to test it out.  She wasn’t tired at all.  She just lay there looking down at her belly for the better part of a minute.  By the time it was over she was asleep.  Before she drifted completely she thought of Render.  She really would have liked to have killed him.

              There were two recreational rooms on the ship, with everything from games to crafts to exersise gear.  One was on the port side of the ship and the other was starport.  There wasn’t much space between them but Natalie made sure Amber and Leone settled in on opposite sides.  She was no dolt, she knew what was going on, it was plain as could be in the way they looked at one another these days, still she didn’t want them going any faster.  Sharing a ship was one thing but sharing a room… there was plenty of time for that when they were older.

             
Afterward, when the kids ran off to show Ryla the paint set they’d found, she settled herself near the entrance they’d first come through.  Most of the supplies were stored there and she thought she’d like to keep an eye on them.  Plus the medical station was housed there and it would be good if she became familiar with the equipment.  She’d have a lot of reading to do.

             
Natalie chuckled and thought, ‘See dad, I’m going to finish medical school after all.  I’ll even become a doctor of sorts.’

             
She took a long breath and let it out slowly.  First order of business would be to dig that slug out of Quey’s arm.  “I’ve sort of grown used to it,” he joked when she went to fetch him.

             
Ryla had barely started to paint one of the walls when it was time to go to the bridge.  They were passing the moon.  She connected to and accessed the networks via proxy link.  From there she easily disabled all the protocols Blue Moon was using to keep the planetary network segregated from the universal one.  After that she uploaded the file package that would hack onto nearly every section of the signal and show the truth of what was happening on Saffron, and the plans Richter Crow had for it and the people living on it.  When it came to the signal on Saffron itself she issued a filter command that blocked all forms of entertainment and replaced them with the truth about Richter Crow.  In essence, it would be the only thing on the Internet for a very long time.

             
When the moon was a distance behind them Rachel woke.  She was disappointed she missed hacking the signal but grateful for the rest.  Invigorated, she decided to see what supplies there might be lurking in the kitchen so she could make a meal for everyone.

             
“To celebrate,” she said.  “Might even have a small sip myself if Arnie hasn’t finished off all the shine himself by now.”

             
There was a brief chuckle and Natalie said, “A fancy ship like this, I’m sure there’s something stocked somewhere.”

             
Truth was Arnie hadn’t touched the shine, even before takeoff.  He was stone sober in the furthest room he could find, sitting on the floor looking down at the small bottle without a label in his lap.  The night before they left for the assault he walked out of the barracks and strolled along the landscape.  He wasn’t looking for anything but a little peace of mind.  What he found was a small little pond of water.  Looking down at his reflection he felt his chest burn, but not from fear of death, it was fear that they might live, and fear of what that meant.

             
‘Rain was just a girl.’

             
Not to him.  To him she was a smile when he woke.  Warmth in the cold.  To him she was the part of his life he could look at and say, ‘that’s what I did.  I got that one.’  In every other way he’d been a coward.  Only in chasing her had he ever been brave.

             
He remembered sitting in her van meaning to pull it around to her, meaning to help her load up and leave him forever and then he felt… well what he was feeling now.  The dread of her absence.  It had given him strength and he had been brave that one time, when he crashed her van so she couldn’t leave him.

             
He’d stood at the edge of that shallow bit of water for a long time and more than anything he wanted to step in, sink down as far as he could go and take a long drink.  Instead he went back, found a bottle, dumped it out in the grass and filled it again.

             
He was too much of a coward to take his own life but if he drank… he wouldn’t really be dead except on the inside.  He was certain he wouldn’t feel her absence anymore.

             
Looking down at the bottle he saw her in his mind.  Then he felt her as a prescience in the room, looking down at him and knowing his thoughts.  How would she look at him if she saw him now, it brought him to tears.  Slumped against the wall he shuddered with sobs and said, “I’m sorry.”

             
She would have consoled him.  He would have felt better.  He opened his eyes to look at her but she wasn’t there.  Truth continued to settle on him until it was so heavy he couldn’t even cry.  He could only say it again.  “I’m sorry.”

             
He still held the bottle in his lap.  In the hangar he’d taken a sip.  Had it been enough?  If so, how long would it take?

             
In the kitchen everyone was dressed in the garments meant for the folks who were set to inhabit this ship.  It had been stocked and kept stocked because Blue Moon wasn’t sure how the end would happen or when it would be time to leave.  Last thing you needed to be when that time came was waiting for luggage. 

             
So they dressed and gathered around the long dark wood table and laughed and talked as dinner was served with a bottle of red wine they’d found outside the stasis storage system.  Even the wealthiest of folk rarely got a hold of wine anymore, but it made sense.  If you’d just run off with a few hundred billion and change, you’d want to celebrate too.  They’d kept it out of stasis to allow further aging, the clever bastards.