Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (93 page)

              Silence fell as everyone considered Eonara’s words and their implications.  They would be heading straight into the lair of the enemy, to a hell world at the centre of the galaxy to entreat with and attempt to deceive a machine god.

              ‘No.  I for one wish to remain aboard,’ said Steelscale, firmly.  ‘I would look upon the enemy home-world and watch you destroy them if I can.  It will be a story worth recounting to my descendants.  I will not shy away from this.’

              The others said nothing, contemplating their possible fates – to face the Shapers, or to be stranded here in the abandoned home of their creators.

              ‘He’s right, Steelscale’s right,’ said Katherine.  ‘We’ve come so far, risked so much.  We can’t back away now.  I’m in.’

              ‘Great, well... I guess I’m coming along too then, aren’t I?’ said Rekkid, wearily.  ‘I mean, we never can resist the opportunity to try and get ourselves killed, can we?’

              ‘If I might ask,’ said Mentith, the ship’s cat avatar winding itself around his legs. ‘How do you intend for us to journey to the Shaper home-world?  From the data that we now have on its exact location, it is located close to the very centre of the galaxy, in a wide orbit about the Maelstrom.  That is around ten thousand light years distant from here.  However, according to the map of the gate network that we now have in our possession, all routes leading to that area of the galaxy were severed long ago by the Progenitors after the Shapers turned against them.’

              ‘There is a way,’ said Aaokon. ‘As I said when we first came here: the Shadow Gate that we passed through on our way inside the Great Sphere is unique: it alone amongst the surviving gates from the Progenitors’ network can be re-targeted so that its terminus may be placed anywhere in the galaxy.  During the height of the Progenitor Empire, it was used by the fleet to move forces around the Empire in an instant.  If the Defence Collective can be reasoned with, it can take us to the Shaper home-world.’

              Aaokon and Eonara were trying to negotiate with the half-senile AIs of the Defence Collective.  Even operating at the speed that they thought and communicated at, it was still taking some time to convince them to point the Shadow Gate at the Shaper home-world.  The AIs were understandably wary about opening a gateway into that terrible place, where the ancient enemy that had wiped out the greatest empire in galactic history still lurked.

              Meanwhile, the crew of the
Shining Glory
completed their task of lifting scientists and equipment off the frozen polar cap of the Progenitor home-world.  Rekkid busied himself in his quarters with studying some of the recordings that they had made down on the planet, occupying his mind with work to take his thoughts away from the impending doom that now loomed before them.  Holding the slim datapad in his long-fingered hands he realised that he couldn’t keep it still, that his hands were shaking.  He and Katherine had been through a lot together, witnessed terrible and awe-inspiring things in the last few years, but nothing could prepare him for this.  They were going to their deaths.  He was almost certain of that.

Even during the worst of what had happened to them - during the K’Soth attack on Marantis or the Shaper attack on the Kaggorak facility - he had always clung to the belief, however loudly he had protested, that they were going to survive somehow.  Maybe it was because he hadn’t had time to contemplate what was happening to them, hadn’t had time to sit with the fear gnawing at his gut.  He wondered what had made him agree to go.  Was it simply a desire to see this through to the end?  Or was it about protecting her, staying at her side no matter what?  He didn’t know.  He threw the datapad down onto the desk in front of him and put his head in hands.

‘You stupid bloody fool, Rekkid Cor,’ he said to no-one in particular.  ‘Why couldn’t you have been like most academics and spent the rest of your life in your study with a pile of old books?  What are you doing all the way out here?’

The ship’s cat avatar padded into the room, its tail held high.  Rekkid looked up at its approach.

‘Maybe I’m just curious,’ said Rekkid.  ‘The humans have a saying about cats and curiosity and what happens to them as a result.’

The looming form of Steelscale entered behind the cat, his saurian body reeking of K’Soth hormonal secretions.

‘And what have you been up to?’ said Rekkid.  ‘Dare I ask?’

‘You may not,’ said Steelscale.  ‘Suffice to say I have cut my concubines loose of their obligations to me.  I offered them the chance of staying on this world, if they wish.  They chose to stay with me instead.’

‘Seems like everybody on this ship has a death wish of some kind,’ Rekkid replied.  ‘Where’s Katherine?  Is she in her room?’

‘No, I couldn’t find her.  I thought that you might have seen her.’

‘She’s in the arboretum,’ said the ship.  ‘Come, I’ll take you to her.’

They found Katherine sitting under a broad, leafy tree, gazing into the middle distance at the artificial landscape.  Rekkid sat down beside her and crossed his long legs.

‘Are you frightened, Rekkid?’ said Katherine.

‘Frightened?  I’m fucking terrified, why do you ask?’

‘Then it’s not just me.’

‘No it’s not, trust me. Me, Steelscale though he won’t admit it, Mentith, everyone.  Everyone is frightened.  If they aren’t frightened, then they’re idiots or, like our artificial friend here,’ he said, reaching out to scratch behind the cat’s ears, ‘are incapable of feeling fear.’

‘I’m not sure that makes me feel any better, actually,’ said Katherine.  ‘If the rest of you weren’t so scared, I’d think it was just me terrified that we’re about to die.’

‘We can always stay behind.’

‘No.  No we have to finish this.  Promise, though, Rekkid,’ she said, turning round to look him straight in the eye.  ‘Promise me, that if it comes to a choice between death and being enslaved by those things that you’d know what to do, because I’d do the same for you.’

‘Of course,’ he replied, nodding furiously.  ‘I won’t let that happen.’

There was silence, whilst each of them became lost in their own dark thoughts.

‘So what are you going to do, when all of this is over?’ said Katherine, trying to lighten the mood.

‘Me?  Spend about a month getting dangerously drunk, I think, and then vow to never leave the safety of my faculty again, assuming it isn’t a smoking crater already.  You?’ Rekkid replied.

‘I think I’d just like to see Earth again, see my family.  It’s been so long since I’ve been back... but on the other hand, I might just join you in the business of getting drunk.  Steelscale, what about you?’

‘I can’t go home.  If I do, my own people will execute me as a traitor,’ said Steelscale, sadly.  ‘I don’t know... maybe there are other exiles like me scattered across space.  Maybe if I settled in the Commonwealth and tried to do something to build bridges between our species... perhaps it’s a vain hope.’

‘It’s a start,’ said Rekkid.  ‘It’s a damn sight more productive than what I have in mind.’

The ship’s cat avatar spoke now, its golden eyes regarding them with a piercing gaze.

‘I am sorry to interrupt,’ said the ship.  ‘But I think that you should return to the bridge.  The Defence Collective has agreed to allow us passage to the Shaper home-world.  It’s time.’

Chapter 52

              ‘You fucking bastard.  You told us that we’d lost those things in the forest!’ yelled Anna.  ‘Now you’re telling me that they’ll be coming here?’

              ‘It’s a foregone conclusion,’ said Steven.  ‘You think that you can shake off the Shapers that easily?  They watched where we went, it’s the only explanation.  I had to get back here. I had to use the secure comm. unit to warn the Commonwealth about that goddamn armada that’s just appeared over our heads.’

              ‘Oh you did, did you?  Might as well have raised a fucking flag whilst you were at it, they’ll have detected the signal, even if they couldn’t decipher it. And what about us?’ Anna spat back.

              ‘This is bigger than any of us.  I made a calculated decision.  Billions of lives could be at stake here.’

              ‘Yeah, well what about our lives?’ snarled Isaacs. ‘Did you ever think of that?’

              ‘Yes, I did, actually.  I fucking did.  Do you think it was easy?  If I didn’t give a shit about either of you, I’d have left you back in that nightclub along with your little lady-friend, since you two seemed to be getting on so well.’

              ‘Don’t you ever...’ Isaacs began, pointing a shaking finger at Steven.  ‘Anita was a good kid, she didn’t fucking deserve... those things...’  In his anger and grief he ran out of words to adequately express how he felt.  He turned suddenly away and lowered the hand he had unconsciously clenched into a fist ready to strike Steven.

              ‘Anita?’ said Maria, eyes widening in horror.  ‘Oh no... not her...’

              ‘I put three rounds in her.  Two in her skull.  I think it was enough to kill that thing inside her,’ said Anna, grim faced.

              ‘Good,’ said Maria.  ‘I’d have done the same.’

              They were gathered inside one of the rooms carved into the bedrock inside the Hidden Hand’s concealed base.  The room was bare, the rock walls unadorned.  There was no furniture besides a collection of desks pushed together into an oblong in the centre of the room surrounded by a mismatched set of chairs.

              ‘Fucking great... now what? We sit here and wait for us all to end up like that?’ Isaacs spat.

              ‘I’ve been told to await further orders,’ Steven replied, flatly.

              ‘Oh you have, have you?  Well in case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t take any fucking orders.  We’re leaving before those things arrive.’

              ‘What, you think you’re going to get off this planet?’ said Steven.  ‘Jesus, Cal.  You’re a damn fine pilot, but I don’t fancy your chances against a sky full of Shaper vessels.’

              ‘Well can’t we call in the
Uncaring Cosmos
, get them to de-cloak in low orbit and pick us up, then make a run for it?’

              ‘We haven’t heard from the
Uncaring Cosmos
since you arrived,’ said Maria, leaning back in her chair with her arms folded.  ‘We have to assume that she was destroyed covering your asses when you swooped in here.  Ain’t nobody riding to our rescue, unless you fancy taking that ship of yours up against hundreds of capital ships up there’

              ‘Shit,’ Isaacs breathed and shook his head.

              Commander Baldwin, former XO of the
Lincoln,
had been silent until now, watching them bicker and noting to herself how unlike the professionals that she was used to working with the Hidden Hand were.  Even after spending so much time with them in this godforsaken rat hole she was amazed any of them were still alive at all.

              ‘If I might ask, Agent Harris: did you find Admiral Haines?’

              ‘Yes, yes I did.  I believe that he’s being held in the cells beneath the Assembly House in Bolivar City.’

              ‘And his status?’

              ‘Unknown.  He’s alive, but whether he’s still one of us or not, I can’t say.’

              ‘And are you planning to go back for him?’

              ‘Those were my original orders.  Now?  I just don’t know if it’s possible.’

              There were lights, voices.  Haines felt himself being roughly lifted to his feet and carried as though he weighed nothing at all.  He couldn’t focus.  The lights and figures and walls swam in his vision.  They’d done something to him.  Drugged him.  Was it something in his last meal?  Or had they come in the night and injected him with something?  It didn’t matter.

              His feet were barely touching the ground.  He felt like he was flying, or walking in low gravity, taking giant slow steps along a corridor of light that seemed to stretch and twist if he tried to look at it, the echoes of the voices distorting also. There was the sound of doors opening.  A lift maybe?  He squinted and thought that he could see the control panel on the wall to his left.  Yes, they were going upwards.  It wasn’t just the curious feeling in his belly – that could be the drugs – the panel showed a series of arrows floating up.

              The lift stopped and he was dragged out, and then down large corridors that echoed with space and were full of bright light.  There was a black and white chequerboard pattern on the floor, a floor that gleamed in the bright lights and echoed to the footsteps of the men that carried him (if they could truly still be considered to be men, after all, they were little more than puppets of meat, bone and sinew).

              They turned a corner into what felt like a larger space with a high ceiling and ornate decoration that seemed to melt and shift before him beneath swaying light sources hung high in the air.  Still handcuffed, he was pushed down into a chair.

              Isaacs had retreated to the familiar surroundings of his ship.  He was checking her over, making her ready for a possible sudden departure.  The Hidden Hand technical crews had done a decent job of giving his vessel the once over - repairing minor damage, tightening loose bolts, adjusting instruments and so on.  Even so, he needed to inspect everything once more just to be sure, and besides, it gave him a little time to himself.  He wondered what the odds were against making an escape run from Orinoco, and just how many of the people cowering down here in the tunnels he’d be able to fit inside the
Profit Margin’s
hull.  Drawing lots would be an ugly business if it came to that, not that he could guarantee that he’d be able to make it out of the system in one piece.  Maria was right, there was a sky full of hostile ships up there, and a moon now crawling with the enemy down here.  Scouts had already spotted gunships and small Shaper craft combing the jungle.   They had managed to somehow shake them off in their flight from the city, but the Shapers seemed to have a good idea about the general area in which they were hiding.  It would only be a matter of time before they came here to winkle the surviving members of the Hidden Hand out of their hiding place.