Burnt Ice (27 page)

~ * ~

‘Hey,
Fritz. Tell you what, you’re in for some serious treats, food-wise, when you
escape. I’m enjoying it now. I’m the ship’s baker. That’s going to look good on
my resume. Certainly my family will like the idea. Wasn’t that keen at the
beginning, but now it’s great. Stephine is going to teach you both how to cook
as well, so we won’t have to look after your sorry arses all the time. Hello,
Sirius. I hope Fritz is looking after you properly.’

‘She says, “Hi, Marko.” Cooking!
Not bloody likely. Not unless the captain orders me. Or Sirius asks me.’ Fritz
paused. ‘Oh. Right, yeah. Tell Stephine she has two enthusiastic students and
Sirius tells me I’m one of them. Man, but I would kill for a beer.’

‘Well, that’ll be interesting.
Just as well we can shunt alcohol out of our systems if we don’t want to
metabolise it. There is some serious booze being brewed on board now.’

‘And I’m stuck in this bloody
tank!’ Fritz groaned.

Marko grinned. ‘It’s not just
beer. Jan’s got a real flair for wines and the boss has been tinkering with
these truly evil brews which he distils from the wines. You know that stuff we
have all been drinking for years, brandy and the like? Man, wait until you
taste this stuff! Veg and the boss built a thing called a “still”. Lotus was
most unhappy about it. Said that it broke a fistful of Administration regs, but
the boss told her to either come out and try a few, or fuck off! Think he was
plastered at the time. Shit, it was funny. I think she wanted to send both her
proxies to clock him one, but Stephine simply walked across to the Lotus
housings and put her hand on them. Must have said something — Lotus calmed
right down,’ said Marko, chuckling. ‘I’d dearly love to know what she said.’

‘Sirius asks if Harry has built
the cameras and recording equipment for her yet? And Marko — stop looking at
Sirius that way. I know she’s gorgeous and the physical age of an
eighteen-standard-year-old but you shouldn’t look at her that way.’

‘Oops. Sorry, Fritz. Sorry,
Sirius. She’s kinda naked, though, and I am a normal male. You two can get out
of the tank any day now. What does Ernst say?’

‘Maybe even tomorrow.’ said
Fritz.

‘Hey!’ said Marko. ‘How come you
can see me clearly through the fluid? You sneaky little bastard, you augmented
yourself! Now who showed you that bit of tinkering? Nice job.’

‘No comment. Now Sirius wants to
know about her kit.’ Fritz said.

‘Yeah, Harry has all her kit
ready for her.’ said Marko. ‘Jan has even measured her up for clothes and she,
Lotus and Stephine are fitting out a wardrobe as well. Right, see you later. I
have bread to bake.’

~ * ~

Five

Marko
was dreaming that someone was combat-tapping a message on the back of his hand.
The tapping became almost painful. As he awoke he saw from the light of the
open door that Jan was looking down at him.

‘Wake up — be quiet. Something is
very wrong.’ She tapped on the back of his hand.

He opened his mouth to ask Lotus
to bring the lights up, but found Jan’s hand covering it. She leant down even
further. He could see that she was in light combat gear, her carbine at hand.
She tapped again.

‘Don’t talk to Lotus. She’s the
problem. Harry and the captain have been incapacitated. One of her proxies is
armed and with them. I cannot contact Veg or Stephine. I think they are in
their shuttle but I can’t make contact. It’s totally sealed off. I’m not sure
about Fritz and Sirius; they may be asleep but the door won’t open. It’s up to
us.’

He reached up and tapped against
her wrist. ‘Crap! What’s happened?’

‘Ernst has dropped a high-level
loop into the corridor and stairway cameras so she will not see us moving
around but we only have minutes before it will expire. Get to your heavy combat
kit. I’ll cover you.’

He saw no point in putting
anything on, so he padded towards the engineering deck stark naked. His new arm
came into its own — he had created every mechanical engineer’s dream by placing
an eyeball on the end of a finger with a toughened, irised lens cover, which
Veg had helped him make. At the time he thought it a huge joke.

Marko accessed the programs in
his head, opened the eye and brought the chameleon-ware for the arm online. He
crept up to a corner and put his invisible hand around it to have a look. The
image was fed directly to his brain while his ordinary vision
compartmentalised. He saw one of the Lotus proxies standing outside the
engineering workshop doors.

He pulled back and waited for
Jan. After he signalled to her what he had seen, she nodded, then reached
around behind her to unstrap a long tube with a complex mechanism at the end.
She laid it down on the floor, where it shimmered and then disappeared. Marko
put his hand back around the corner. After a few minutes he saw the proxy
suddenly freeze. He nodded to Jan, who grabbed his wrist, urging him forwards.
They sprinted to the door, opened it and slipped in. Jan reached out and
plucked the tube from the back of the proxy’s head. As she overrode the door
mechanism, Marko walked across, pulled out his combat suit container, laid
down, and waited the few minutes while it sealed around him.

Standing up and running through
the checklists, he went across to his personal workstation, opened a drawer and
lifted out Fritz’s tiny comms units, immediately placing one against his helmet
audio pick-up where it formed down onto the helmet. He tossed one across to Jan
who looked at it questioningly. He pointed to his helmet and she put hers on.

‘OK, Jan. Spill the beans. What
the fuck is happening? Yeah, these helmets are totally secure. These comms
units are the only two of their kind in existence. Lotus isn’t aware of them, I
hope. Doesn’t matter: she would spend at least an hour to break the code and
Fritz has them on a random wavelength changer. And none of this is audible
outside our suits.’

She nodded, sealing up her
helmet.

‘Nice. You buggers are always up
to something. OK, I was in medical when one of the Lotus proxies came in,
cheerfully greeted me and then fired some sort of gas into my face — I passed
out. Ernst had said he was worried about Lotus. He believed that she was
unstable and had started to think we had made all the wrong decisions. Said she
was aloof with him and Topaz. I think she didn’t really understand Ernst and
what he’s capable of. Over the last few weeks she’s become convinced she and
Sirius were the main purpose of this mission.’

‘Paranoia, eh? Yeah, it would fit
— there is a lot of information in our equipment that she would not be able to
access,’ said Marko.

‘Anyway, Ernst brought me around
and suited me up in this spare lightweight suit, which is always stored in him.
I grabbed a spare weapon from my cabin and some other goodies, then came to see
you. I think Lotus wants to put us all on ice as soon as possible. I think that’s
what the other proxy’s up to. Problem is, they’re tough to kill. The unit I
just used is a one-shot. The proxy will now know it’s missing a few minutes.
The mechanism I used on it accelerated its internal clock, then allowed a small
confusion state, which will look like a program glitch. Hope like hell Lotus is
not familiar with the template. I haven’t got the firepower with me to kill the
proxy. If we use what’s needed it’ll tear chunks out of the ship.’

‘Not nice of the old tart,’ said
Marko. ‘Hey, I have a nasty tool that’ll work. Something Veg told me about. I
made one up just for the hell of it. Did not expect to be using it here on
board. Hold on, I’ll heavy suit up and demonstrate. It’ll only work on that
sucker outside the door, though.’ Marko paused, thinking for a moment. ‘It’s a
one-shot too, so I hope your little unit gave us enough time. Must have done
something
as the proxy’s not trying to rip the door down. Umm, if it works —
when
it works — the other proxy will come charging in, looking for us. We use
shotguns. Lots of diamond rounds available.’

‘Diamond?’ Jan asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Marko ‘We even made
diamond barrels — kinda stupid if we had left the steel ones on. Harry thought
that they would be just the business if we went up against urchins on board
again. Short-range but hellish effective close-up. Our walls are elastic enough
to stop them without too much damage. That, and we constructed the pellets so
they break down to dust within twenty metres anyway. That’ll kill the bastard.
Shit, I hope there’s only one. Be a bastard if Lotus has been lying to us even
more.’

‘So,’ said Jan. ‘Stephine can’t
have killed off the octopoid infections after all. Or maybe Lotus has just lost
the plot. It’s happened a couple of times before. AIs do go rogue.’

‘You wondered about the section’s
security clearances, Jan? Well, we sometimes get called upon by the
Administration to kill off problem AIs. Nasty business. Not being able to
access our full files must have driven her nuts. May have been the trigger that
set her off or maybe the octopoid infection. Maybe she saw something, or just
came to the right conclusion. Bet you any money you like there’s a third proxy
unit somewhere. Security and intelligence AIs like her are generally paranoid
and
sneaky. I wonder if Patrick is still functioning? She may have killed him off.
OK. Shotguns. You familiar with these? Dumb question. Use Harry’s heavy combat
augments. The boss would have changed the protocols when you became a permanent
member of the section. Let’s bomb-up. Hey, how come I wasn’t tapped after you?’

‘Who says you weren’t? I sprayed
some of the same brew that Ernst used on me on you.’

They walked up against the heavy
combat units. Marko’s formed around him as the HUD came up. He programmed the
unit for internal ship combat, which also set the shotgun requirements. A
compact rotary unit was attached and deployed on the underside of his left arm.
He felt the power packs being locked on, plus the magazines, with the AG and
thruster units being clipped up against his sides. He quickly checked through
the lists, activated everything, felt ICE being pumped through his bloodstream.

Going back to his workstation he
slid on AG. He carefully picked up what looked like two crystal handles and an
incredibly fine filament between them. He gestured to Jan to open the door,
quickly strode up behind the proxy, threw the garrotte around its head and
heaved back, sweeping the diamond filament through the proxy’s neck-piece.
Before its head hit the floor, he rolled the filament forwards and down,
slicing the body totally in two. Sparks, severed components and power fluids
dropped to the deck.

Marko and Jan did not have to
wait long. Another of the Lotus proxies, armed with twin short-range microwave
pulse lasers, flew into view to see what had happened, slowing for an instant
to look at the other proxy’s head, which Marko had thrown into the middle of
the corridor. It did not last long. The rotary shotguns chewed great holes in
it, its own head bouncing off the wall before crashing hard against the floor,
smoking and shedding major pieces. They moved quickly, scooping up the major
parts of both proxies and shoving them through the nearest airlock, up against
the ice.

‘Lotus is next.’

Jan nodded just as the AG was
powered off, not that it made any difference to them. They flew up to the
computer and comms deck and fronted against the twin cabinets which housed
Lotus. Marko grabbed the doors of the cabinets and ripped them off, reached in
and tore the comms, control and power cables out, then pulled the restraining
ties off, grabbed both AI housings and pulled them out, pushing them into the
corridor. He pulled them apart, severed all the connecting cables before he
ripped off the primary access panels and yanked out the little arms,
dislocating each of them. This revealed a laser pistol Lotus had been hiding.
He grasped and crushed it into her mechanical hand, for good measure. Then he
lifted each unit against the ceiling and smashed the AG units and motive power
systems by driving his armoured fist up into the equipment.

‘Good work, Marko!’

‘No doubt someone will be pissed
off but I have no time for niceties and polite conversation when AIs take it
into their brains to stop discussing and start acting outside of the interests
of functioning humans. It’s a treacherous act.’