Approaching Omega (6 page)

Eight

"I suggest we suit up," Latimer said. "If Central's been damaged in the impact, then the chances are that a part or all of the core is depressurised."

"Weapons?" Emecheta asked.

"Jenny, Serena, break out the laser rifles. Each EVA suit is equipped with a projectile firing pistol, but we'll need something with more firepower."

Ten minutes later they were suited up and ready to go. They bulked large in the confined area of the control unit, carrying a laser rifle apiece.

Latimer peeled a softscreen from the wall and slapped it on the table before them. He glanced at them through the open faceplate of his helmet. "Okay, we're here, and this is where we're heading."

The screen showed a cross-section of the forward hull of the starship. There were thirty decks in this section, and the command unit sat atop of the beehive-shaped hull. The core was way below them, accessible by dropshafts and long corridors.

"I suggest we take this passage," Emecheta said, "towards the dropshaft here. It looks like the quickest route. Boss?"

"Fine by me. Have you thought about the drones and roboids we might encounter? Not all of them were stationed in the hangars. There'll be a bunch of the maintenance 'bots in the core area."

Emecheta nodded. "How about we proceed two by two? Me and Jenny go first, you two follow? Radio contact?"

Latimer shook his head. "Let's not risk it."

Li said: "What about when we get to the core? What then? How do we destroy Central?"

Latimer looked at Emecheta, who raised his rifle and said: "These should be enough, if we hit it where it hurts."

There was a brief silence as they contemplated the task ahead, and then Renfrew said: "Okay, so we knock out Central. What then? We'll still have the drones and the 'bots to fight off."

Emecheta pursed his lips. "It stands to reason that they're already slaved to Central. I don't think they achieved autonomy and are doing what they're doing by themselves. Central's behind what's happening. We disable Central, and we're halfway there."

Li asked: "But what about all the colonists? If we disable Central, then what'll happen to the colonists?"

Emecheta glanced at Latimer. "My guess is that they lost their humanity when the 'bots got to them. They're machines, now. Ted?"

Latimer nodded. "Em's right. We've lost the colonists. At least, those that've been cyborged. The sleepers in Two are another matter..." I've lost Carrie, he realised. "We're fighting for the sleepers in hangar Two, now. And for our lives."

And after that, if they survived? Perhaps, somehow, they might be able to proceed with the mission. But he was getting ahead of himself. He should think only short term, for now: survival and revenge — a catharsis for the horror inflicted upon them.

Disable the monster that Central had become...

"Okay," Emecheta said, pulling the softscreen from the table and wrapping it around his forearm. "Let's go."

They left the command unit, Emecheta and Li first, followed a minute later by Latimer and Renfrew. They passed down long grey corridors stitched with strip-lighting that activated as they approached and died as they passed. The bulky EVA suits were not made for walking under atmospheric conditions, and Latimer, after so long in cold sleep, found the exercise exhausting. Added to which, he was nervous and jumpy with the thought of a few thousand 'bots and drones on their trail. He kept swinging around at the slightest sound, the merest echo in the empty, silent corridor.

He thought of Carrie, and what she might have become. The lack of certainty was the hardest thing to cope with. If he could be assured that she had died quickly and painlessly, then he could take some small measure of comfort from the knowledge. But until then he imagined the worst, and the worst in this scenario was a nightmare that filled him with horror.

Up ahead, Emecheta and Li had halted before the recessed entry to a dropshaft. The Nigerian waved a thick, gloved hand, and Latimer and Renfrew hurried along the corridor.

Emecheta unrolled the softscreen from the sleeve of his EVA suit and slapped it on the wall. He tapped the screen, indicating their present position. "This is the shaft that takes us closest to where we need to be." Latimer followed his gloved finger as it descended through the ship. It stopped in the well that was the core, where Central was housed.

"When we hit bottom, there's a short corridor to the core. What do you think?"

"Same again," Latimer said. "We go two by two. Serena and me first, this time. Give us five minutes to reach bottom, then follow. We'll be back up if we come across any opposition. Then we'll discuss tactics."

Emecheta nodded. "Fine by me."

Latimer and Renfrew stepped on to the drop-plate and held on. They descended, the tubular carriage taking them through section after section of the vast starship. Latimer slowed their descent from time to time and peered through the viewplate at passing corridors and levels.

"See anything, Ted?" Renfrew whispered.

"Not a thing. Maybe we'll be lucky and reach the core without opposition."

"First bit of luck we'd've had—" she began.

The drop-plate stopped with a jarring jolt.

"Talked too soon," Latimer muttered.

The emergency light on the control panel was flashing on and off. Seconds later a message scrolled across the screen:
Access denied: Level Thirteen inaccessible. Depressurised conditions
.

Renfrew looked at him. "What now? We go back to Em and chart another route?"

Renfrew nodded and reversed the plate. They rose, Latimer experiencing a slow burn of dread. Every second they wasted now, their enemy was approaching with unreasoning, mechanical remorselessness.

"What gives?" Emecheta said as Latimer stepped from the plate.

"Level thirteen's depressurised," Latimer said. "We'll have to take another route."

Emecheta pasted the softscreen to the wall and examined the cross-section. "If we can't get through level thirteen by the shaft," he said, "then the only way is by one of the emergency service tubes."

Latimer indicated the closest tube. "Level twelve," he said. "We drop to twelve in the shaft and then take the corridor to the emergency tube and climb down to level thirteen."

"What then?" Li asked.

Latimer said: "Then we pressurise our suits, open the hatch and take a look at what state level thirteen is in. With luck, we can get through it and continue..." He noticed that Emecheta was looking at him doubtfully.

"Okay, let's move it," Latimer said. He clipped his laser to his suit, then he and Renfrew boarded the plate and dropped. Minutes later they reached level twelve and stepped through he exit, rifles ready. They found themselves in a corridor identical to the one they had left.

The plate rose, and minutes later Latimer heard it whine as it descended with Emecheta and Li. They stepped from the plate and, Latimer and Renfrew leading they way, all four hurried along the corridor towards the entry to the emergency service tube.

Latimer activated the command unit on the wall beside the entry and read the diagnostics on the screen. "Okay," he said, "the shaft is pressurised for a hundred meters, then beyond the first lock it's a vacuum."

"Let's pressurise our suits now to save time," Emecheta said.

Latimer dropped his faceplate, touched the control on his chest unit, and seconds later was breathing cool, canned air. In the sudden silence of his suit, he felt cut-off, alone. There would be no radio communication from now on, and only verbal communication when they touched helmets.

He looked at Emecheta and received the thumbs up.

He opened the hatch, stepped into the tube, lodged his boots on the rungs of the ladder and began the long descent.

There was barely enough space to contain his bulky EVA suit, and from time to time he snagged on projecting lips and seams. No thought of aesthetics had been given to the design of the tube: the wall before him was featureless grey metal, marked with ugly welding scars. From time to time he glanced down, past his feet. He could see a circular lock, tiny in the diminishing perspective.

What seemed like an age later, he reached the lock.

He activated the control unit and read the screen. Beyond the lock, level thirteen had been breached. The screen advised caution.

Latimer looked up and gestured the others to hold tight while he opened the lock. He hit the code and gripped the rungs of the ladder in preparation for the blast of escaping air.

It roared silently past him as it was sucked out into the vacuum, buffeting him. A second later all was still, and he peered down through his feet at the ruins of what once had been level thirteen.

He made out a mass of twisted metal, a configuration so unfamiliar that at first his eyes had difficulty in ordering the chaos. Directly below him, he made out the what looked like an aerial view of what he assumed must be level fourteen: the deck above it had been stripped, and all that remained were the hundreds of individual units and rooms, connected by a rat's maze of corridors. Between that level and where he stood, level thirteen had been completely removed in the accident: only stray cable and leads remained, waving eerily back and forth through the vacuum. To his left was the star-specked immensity of deep space.

Above him, Emecheta was manoeuvring himself so that he was upside-down in relation to Latimer. They touched helmets, establishing verbal communications.

"So what now, boss?"

"Christ, Em, what do we do?"

"We always have the powerpacks..."

"It'll be dangerous without safety cables," Latimer said. "It'd mean going out there and clinging to the wreckage until we made it around to level fourteen."

"We gotta do it," Emecheta said, and the inevitability in his voice sent a surge of dread through Latimer.

"Okay, fine. Tell the others."

While Emecheta turned, Latimer lowered himself towards the exit and peered out.

There would be plenty of hand-holds around the inside of the wrecked deck, and with the EVA suit's power-pack pushing them through the vacuum, there should be little danger.

They would have to be careful, he told himself. Take it easy...

He looked up and signalled to Emecheta.

He powered up his suit and dropped through the hatch. As he fell, the extent of the damage became apparent. It was as if the blast had taken a neat bite from the starship, removing a chunk of what had been level thirteen. No wonder Central had gone down, he thought.

If the 'bots and drones managed to get it up and running...

He tried not to follow that line of thought.

He steered himself along the underside of deck twelve, grabbing hand-holds to steady himself when he came up against the torn and twisted metal. He looked back: one by one the others emerged from the hole in the wreckage, looking in their black and yellow EVA suits like reluctant bees emerging from a hive.

Latimer stared ahead. He made out a cliff-face of sheered metal perhaps two hundred metres before him. If they could reach that and climb down the face, towards the ripped upper surface of level fourteen, then they might be able to find the entry-hatch of a shaft or an emergency tube and continue their descent.

He paused, hanging on what was effectively the ceiling like a fly, and waited for Emecheta and the others to reach him.

A minute later he touched helmets with the Nigerian and said: "So far, so good. We'll head for the wall and climb down, okay?"

"AOK. Look, down there." Emecheta pointed to what looked like the hatch of an emergency tube on the surface of the deck below them.

"We'll make for that," Latimer said. "Tell Serena and Jen."

Using the directional jets of his suit with care, Latimer eased his way towards the cliff-face and began the descent.

~

The first laser strike hit a flange of metal a metre to his left. Latimer started, losing his grip on the cliff-face and drifting, and this in all likelihood saved his life. The second laser strike slashed past him and hit the plane of metal which he had clung to seconds ago. He powered up his suit and fell towards the deck below, all caution gone now that he was under fire.

He hit the jagged surface feet first with an impact that jarred his knees painfully. He looked up. Emecheta was falling towards him, having realised the danger, but the women were still fly-crawling, with occasional short hops, down the cliff-face, seemingly oblivious of the attack.

Latimer caught Emecheta and held on, looking along the length of the sheered deck towards the source of the fire.

He made out the trilobite shape of a manufactory 'droid, five hundred meters away, loosing off a continual hail of laser fire. Emecheta hauled Latimer along the deck and into the cover of a flange of ruptured metal. Latimer held on to a twisted spar, regaining his breath. Emecheta was on his knees behind the flange, aiming along the deck with his rifle. Latimer joined him, bobbing, and brought the butt of his laser to his padded shoulder and fired in the direction of the trilobite.

Other drones and 'droids had joined battle, now. They popped up at random from holes and rents in the deck, fired off a quick laser pulse, and disappeared. Emecheta hit the trilobite — it went spinning off into the vacuum of space beyond the gaping hole in the side of the ship, but was soon replaced by another. Latimer accounted for perhaps half a dozen 'bots, feeling a kick of elation with every strike. But still returning laser fire came from the deck, exploding amid the wreckage around him and Emecheta.

Then the 'droids saw the women, still bobbing down the side of the cliff-face, and turned their attention to them.

Latimer watched, horribly aware of his inability to help, as one of the women released her grip and powered herself through the vacuum towards where he and Emecheta crouched — Li or Renfrew he could not tell. She was firing her laser as she descended, spraying a dozen bolts at random across the sheared deck.

Shafts of blinding white light lanced past her, and Latimer thought it only a matter of time before she was hit.

She came tumbling in at speed, unable to right herself. As she was about to hit the deck, Latimer stood and made a grab for her suit. He caught hold of her bulky leg as she cut her powerpack, then hauled her behind the flange. It was Renfrew, he realised as he took in her terrified expression behind the faceplate of her helmet.