The Belt - Complete Series, page 91
They came to a defensive barricade that had been established outside the entrance to the operations room and where Cyrus had been working on the QI core. Three Martian military crew had taken up a position behind a light plasma cannon. Anything coming down this tunnel would be in for a fight. They were in full EVA suits, ready for the moment when the spaceport finally lost compression, and judging by the intensity of the assault, that wouldn’t be long coming. They moved past the barricade and into the operations area. Anxious faces greeted them.
Captain Rickmann beckoned to them from behind a bank of monitors. “We’re being hammered,” he said with a shake of his head.
Miranda looked at the monitors, at the running battles playing out in and around the access routes to this area of the spaceport. Martian and smuggler, fighting side-by-side, trying to hold back an army of battle-droids.
“I’ve given the command for everyone to fall back. We’ll try and defend the entrances to this area. But if that fails, then we’ll get everyone inside, seal up the doors, and make a last stand in here.”
Already, fighters were piling back in through the two routes still open. Many were injured, some were dead, all looked worn and haggard.
Dakota was amongst the last to arrive. He came over when he spotted them gathered around the monitors. “Where’s the honor in fighting machines? Those things are diabolical, they’re mowing us down,” he said breathlessly.
Rickmann shook his head again. “All our exterior cannon are down, they could annihilate us with just their ships’ firepower, so why are they sending these killing machines?”
“They want the QI,” said Cyrus. He had given up on his quest to get the QI core activated, and instead watched the carnage playing out across the spaceport.
“Then we should destroy it, rather than let them have it.” Miranda looked over at the engineer.
“Already thought of that.” Cyrus showed them a control switch he held in his hand. “I wired the core to go boom. Only problem is when it does, we all go down with it.” He held a thumb over the push button to emphasize the point.
The last of the fighters scrambled in and others began welding the doors shut. Captain Rickmann cast them a worried glance. “Don’t know how long that’s going to hold them.”
“Sir,” a tech called over, “another ship has just shown up. Small, looks like a luxury cruiser.”
“Great,” said Scott. “They’re selling tickets to the show, now the fat cats are turning up to enjoy their moment of triumph.”
“Positions everybody,” Rickmann shouted out on general comms. “We take down anything that tries to break in.”
Miranda gripped Scott’s gloved hand. He looked at her, a little surprised. She turned into him, placed a hand behind his head, and they knocked visors. No words were spoken—they didn’t have to.
They broke apart, then took up positions behind one of the many hastily assembled barricades. Cyrus joined them, plasma pistol in one hand, detonator in the other.
It didn’t take long for the machines to start cutting through the access doors. First, they glowed red hot, turning to white as the laser cutters began scything through the thick steel. When it had completed its loop around the door, the cut was kicked in, flailing across the cargo-bay space and crashing into the opposite wall. Two battle-droids scrambled through, firing bursts at the defenders along the barricades. The machines were met with a crescendo of return fire. Both droids never made it more than a few meters. But more came, and kept coming.
Miranda grabbed Scott’s arm. “We’re running out of time.” They were being assailed with plasma fire; bodies floated past them. She turned to look at Cyrus, who crouched on the floor with his back to the barricade. Cyrus looked from one to the other, then nodded. He held out a balled fist.
Miranda grabbed it, wrapping her hand around. Scott followed with his hand. Finally, Dakota floated over and placed his on top. Cyrus again looked from one to the other, flicked the safety cap off the detonator, and his thumb hovered over the button. He took one last look over at the raging battle and noticed something odd.
The battle-droids were shutting down. His thumb hesitated. “Look—the droids, they’re deactivating.”
Miranda opened her eyes, and sure enough the machines had stopped firing, retracted their weapons’ systems, and folded up their four limbs into a kind of fetal position. They were also being bombarded with plasma fire from all sides as the crew took the opportunity to attack them unopposed. Some crew were also beginning to come out from behind cover and moving in for the kill.
“What the…” Miranda looked at Cyrus and grabbed his detonator hand, preventing him from depressing the button. “Hold that thought, Cyrus. Something’s up.”
The engineer took his thumb away and flicked the safety cover back into position, just as a loud burst of static come over the general comms. “Aghh…” Miranda clasped a hand to the side of her helmet, frantically turning the volume down, as did every other person left alive in operations room.
Then she heard a voice, one she recognized. “Cease firing, cease firing. The droids are no threat now.”
The others must have heard this too, as the level of violence directed at the machines dialed down a few notches.
“I said, cease firing. We’re going to need those droids.”
The firing stopped, to be replaced with a universal sense of confusion by the crew as they all tried to get some understanding of who this voice belonged to.
The main operations console had been shot to bits. Monitors floated cracked and broken around the area; some still had cables attached and so just dangled in place. But some of the equipment began to pop back to life, lights flickering. Cracked screens began displaying scrolling lines of code, comms buzzed and crackled. Everybody began to move closer to the wrecked console to witness this bizarre anomaly.
One screen still intact, dangling on its wire tether, flickered to life and a human face began to form. It was a young woman, head tilted back, eyes half closed with only the whites showing. The group moved in closer to get a better look at this ghostly apparition. Suddenly her eyes snapped open, and the group jolted back a little. She spoke.
“The battle is over, all Xiang Zu ships are disabled. I’m coming on board.”
The screen went dark.
“Who, in the name of all that is holy in this godforsaken system, is that?” Dakota spoke for everyone.
“She,” said Miranda, clutching Scott’s hand, “is our daughter.”
17
GAME ON
She had almost left it too late. Another second or two and the outcome might have been vastly different. Nevertheless, a considerable amount of death and destruction had been inflicted by the time she finally did show up.
From the very outset, Luca had been determined not to get involved in the conflict that was brewing out at Elektra. She had other objectives, so this was not her fight. But throughout the initial stage of her journey from Earth to the asteroid belt, Athena had been updating her on the progress of the Martian expedition to recover the stolen QI—notwithstanding the fact that she had blocked all communications with the ship. But no matter what firewall she put on the ship’s systems, the QI always found a way to circumvent it.
She knew what it was doing, of course. It was trying to get her involved. Not overtly; QIs rarely came at you head-on. Their methods were more oblique, nudging people and events in the direction they wanted them to take without them really knowing. Yet, by sending her these reports in the manner in which they came, Athena was exhibiting the closest thing a QI could come to outright pleading.
And it had the desired result. She found herself reading them and latching on to the fate of her family and friends. But it wasn’t the fact that their mission had located the missing QI that roused Luca from her indifference—it was the presence of node-runner activity that had tipped the balance for her.
She had assumed that they would be on the lookout for her approach to New World One, but this activity was emanating from a VanHeilding ship much farther out. At that range, her ability to interrogate their systems was limited but she did figure out that they had a potential lead on the location of the stolen QI and were passing this information on to any Xiang Zu ships in close proximity.
This prompted Luca to finally break her communications silence and contact Athena. Between them, they analyzed all current data points and concluded that if the Mars mission was indeed heading for that location—an old, semi-derelict spaceport in the Berbericia sector—then it wouldn’t be long before Xiang Zu forces encircled them. They would be seriously outgunned, and complete annihilation was a distinct possibility.
Much to the satisfaction of the QI, Athena, Luca instructed the ship’s AI to calculate an optimal course to the Berbericia sector. She had the advantage of having a very fast ship, but even with this she wouldn’t arrive until after the Xiang Zu forces. She considered that she might be too late already. So, she hacked the ship’s operating parameters to push the engines a few percent beyond the recommended safety limit, saving her an extra day—assuming that the ship didn’t disintegrate in the process.
And so, for the second time en route to confront Fredrick VanHeilding on New World One, Luca changed course. At least this time she would still be in the same broad region of space, and not going backward.
By the time the ship got to within range of the old spaceport, a raging firefight was already in progress. Three Xiang Zu ships were bombarding the peripheral structure with plasma fire while a contingent of battle-droids tore their way into the central core, presumably where the defenders had decided to hole up. Luca activated her neural-lace and went hunting.
There were no node runners on the Xiang Zu ships, nor anywhere in the vicinity—this was good. It would make life a little easier for her. She reckoned that the VanHeilding Corporation did not trust Xiang Zu with its most potent weapon, preferring instead to offer intelligence-gathering facilities rather than allowing them direct control.
She probed the first ship within range. It was the smallest of the three and so had hung back a little, shielding itself from the fusillade of plasma-cannon fire emanating from the spaceport. Within a few microseconds, Luca had obliterated the ship’s firewalls and began manipulating its AI to deactivate all systems excluding life-support. In an instant it lost all motive power, weapons control, and communications. Likewise, she did the same to the next ship in the fleet.
The final ship was where the battle-droids were being operated from, and it took her a few extra microseconds to wrest control from the human operators. With all data comms channels now disabled, the battle-droids defaulted to fail-safe and automatically deactivated themselves.
She then bent her mind to the spaceport and tried to find a data route in. This was much trickier than the ships since most of its comms systems were either disabled or destroyed. But find a way she did, and she sent a broadcast message for them to stop fighting. The battle was over, she was now in control, and she would be paying them a visit momentarily.
Luca brought her ship in as close as she dared to the mangled docking port, instructing it to maintain its position. She put on her EVA suit, and with the help of a thruster pack, exited the ship and flew over to one of the few airlocks on the spaceport that still functioned.
I can’t believe you’re here, Luca,” said her stunned mother.
“We thought you were on the New World,” said an equally stunned Scott.
They had met her coming out of the airlock and taken her to their operations room, a cavernous cargo hold, where she was greeted with muted silence by a motley crew of Martian military and scruffy mercenaries. There were dead and injured, being hastily treated and comforted by friends and comrades. Debris floated everywhere, along with the torn and broken carcasses of battle-droids. In the center of the space was the stolen QI core; a multitude of cables and ducting snaked out from the casing to broken and disheveled banks of equipment. Cyrus glanced over from behind this chaos and waved. She waved back and gave a smile, happy to see that he was also still alive.
Atmospheric pressure had been restored to this space, so she flipped open her visor and turned to Miranda and Scott, who were busy explaining who she was to the others. “I’ve disabled the Xiang Zu ships, but more are coming. Two more to be precise, and they’ll be here in less than three hours.”
She raised a hand to quiet the barrage of questions being thrown at her. “While that’s not a major problem, there’s also a well-armed VanHeilding ship monitoring the situation, and if it gets no reply from the Xiang Zu force, it’ll start to investigate. They’re in a completely different league, as they have a cohort of node runners on board. So you all need to get out of here as soon as possible.”
There was a momentary silence as the assembled crew tried to assimilate all this information.
“We take my ship and the QI core and head for Elektra. That’s where the fight is.” A scruffy looking mercenary gestured at what looked to be his comrades for approval. But the response was muted.
“Your ship is destroyed, Dakota. The hangar was hit with several plasma blasts, the place is a wreck,” said Cyrus as he joined the group surrounding Luca.
“So the only way off this spaceport is on your ship, Luca,” said Miranda, pointing at her.
“I’m going to New World One. I have a date with destiny, and believe me, you don’t want to go that way.”
“So we just stay here and wait to be attacked again?” said Dakota. “And can someone please tell me how the hell you did that, disable those ships with not so much as a whisper?” he continued.
Luca considered this a moment, then decided to indulge this question. “You know about node runners, genetically enhanced humans that can jack-in to the grid and manipulate the data-stream?”
There were a few nods, but mostly blank faces.
“I possess such abilities. So it was a relatively simple matter for me to screw with the AI controlling those ships.”
“But how…?”
Luca raised a hand. “Enough. I’ll talk no more about it. Just accept I can do these things.”
“Then come to Elektra, we could use someone with your abilities. We could defeat Xiang Zu, and save a lot of lives in the process,” Dakota pleaded.
“No, not my fight. My path leads to New World One and the VanHeilding Corporation.”
“But they know you’re coming, they’re expecting you.” Miranda’s face took on a concerned look. “They’ll have everything they’ve got armed and ready to take you on. How sure are you of getting past all that?”
“Well, it turns out that this little detour to save all your asses can actually work to my advantage. There’s a VanHeilding ship lying in wait for me, but it has one eye on this skirmish. Once it realizes they’ve lost communications with the Xiang Zu attack fleet, I’m hoping it’ll come out here and investigate. That’ll divert it and possibly allow me to pass without being noticed.”
“I still say the best option is to help us defeat the forces trying to subjugate Elektra. Once we do that, then we can gather our resources and travel together to take on New World One.” Dakota spread his hands out, appealing to her.
“I’m not going to Elektra. Like I said, that’s your fight. But I will help you get there. You can take my ship, it’s fast and very well armed. You can do a serious amount of damage with it.”
Dakota’s eyes widened. “Seriously? And what about you?”
“I’m going to take one of the Xiang Zu ships. That way I stand a better chance of approaching New World One without being discovered.”
There was a pause in the discussions as they each considered Luca’s plan.
“What about the QI core?” Cyrus finally asked. “Everything we tried to do still stands. If we can get that up and running, then the war is pretty much over.”
“We go with Luca and take it with us,” said Scott. “It was designed for the habitat, the support infrastructure is already in place. If we can get inside, then it’s possible. And let’s face it, Cyrus, you know every nook and cranny in that place. It can be done.”
Miranda nodded. “Scott’s right. If Luca can get us in, then we have a good shot at finishing this.”
Cyrus scratched his chin. “Hmmm…it might be possible.” He looked from Luca to Scott to Miranda and gave a shrug. “Okay, let’s finish this, once and for all.”
18
ANOTHER HORIZON
In saving her parents from death at the hands of a Xiang Zu droid army, Luca now found herself being convinced into helping them get the QI core installed in New World One. Yet, her own objective had always been simple ever since she left Mars in Sebastian VanHeilding’s ship, and that was to put an end to Fredrick VanHeilding. But this seemingly clear objective had been building in complexity and audacity as she bent her mind to its execution. Already she had acquired the wherewithal to strike a critical blow to the power of the VanHeilding Corporation, but if this new QI could be made active at the same time, then it would mean that the current fight for control within the solar system would be brought to a close. The growing ambitions of VanHeilding, Xiang Zu, and the other families would be curtailed, and the old ways of constant conflict and strife could be tempered. Couple this with the system-wide release of the VanHeilding genetic data research, then humanity truly had the potential to level up as a civilization.
It was at that moment that she realized the QIs’ true intentions and the sheer scale of their vision. Oh my God, she thought. This was their plan all along. How did she not see it before now?
Then another thought began to form. Have they been manipulating me into doing this? Am I just another element in their grand equation? This thought troubled her, as she’d been under the assumption, ever since leaving Mars, that she had been making her own decisions, charting her own course, defining her own destiny. Maybe this was all just an illusion.
