Provenance I - Flee The Bonds (38 page)

Steve whirled around; a hand gripped each door, hands with polymer fingers. The gap widened.

04:10 SUN 05:11:2119

Armoury 06-18-17, Provenance, LEO

Francois stood in Armoury 17’s wide aisle. Above his head, three lines of square lights showered snow-white onto rows of polished metal cubes that filled both sides of the forty-metre long arsenal. A narrow walkway separated each burnished container and gave access to the armoured roller shutters. There were no keys, only Core Command could open them.

He raised his MPS, 04:11.
Why does Morton not respond?
Suspicion weaved through Francois’s consciousness, leading him to a moonlit Saturday night. Had Roustam lost the fight? He could not wait for Steve. He rotated the MPS selector. ‘
Davout
, you are in position?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Commence your attack.’

Davout would attack through the central corridors and Massena through the Council’s accommodation deck. With CONSEC committed on two fronts, Francois would take command of the bridge, and Provenance.

He looked up the aisle to the far bulkhead. Eight pairs of metal doors glinted on a white background. Designed for the rapid deployment of Provenance’s Defence Force, each deck-car could carry forty men directly to the bridge deck. He had four hundred and sixty soldiers, one hundred of those, his Imperial Guard grenadiers. Unlike Dee, Francois kept his reserves far from the battle.

He dialled the MPS selector again. ‘Make the Semaphore team ready.’ The four-man team would go ahead to create the View Deflection Layer and establish forward communications. Francois raised his head. Hovering three metres above the floor the Spotter projected a VDL hologram. The armoury’s six cameras saw only an empty room, not the silent columns of protector suits filling the aisle.

Francois’s impatience took him to the Semaphore team standing by deck-car five. ‘What is the problem?’

The officer stepped aside. ‘Sir, it does not open.’

Francois stabbed at the square black button. It remained unlit. ‘Do any function?’

‘One only, sir.’

One was not enough. He grabbed the officer’s shoulder plate, ‘Remove the panel, find the problem, and repair it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He steepled his fingers.
What did Steve say? A UFO, an unforeseen obstacle.
Francois had planned for several; this was not one of them.

‘Sir.’

He followed the officer’s finger to a recess containing the deck-car’s control panel circuits. ‘What have you found?’

‘Thermal oxidation of the HSQ layer, sir.’

Francois tensed, he knew of only one weapon that left that residue. Behind him, an armoured shutter rattled over the distinctive hum. He spun around. ‘Prefect!’

The hum emanated from the left-hand side, in the proximity of row sixteen. The columns of soldiers separated, fanning out on either side of the gap, rifles at the ready.

Francois withdrew his Cogent. ‘Bring the APRs to the front!’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Repair the control panels, take circuits from others.’

A Prefect glided up out of the gap; its black body absorbing the light.

Francois took aim. ‘Fire!’

The armoury’s tranquillity exploded into the deafening rampage of battle, the Prefect shuddered, yellow and orange streaks clattered off its body. Francois ran forward and fired again. As it flew past, the plasma ball arced off the black shell.

The Prefect pivoted towards him.

A grenadier’s shoulder plate struck Francois’s hip plate, lifting him off his feet and propelling into a gap. His shoulder plate clanged into a cube and he fell to the floor.

Blinking in the gap’s dimness, Francois orientated himself into a crouch. The grenadier stood and fell against the cube. ‘You must stay here, sir. I will report back.’

Francois sniffed. ‘Hurry.’ The grenadier hobbled away, metal struck metal. Francois sniffed again; it wasn’t only dust irritating his nose. The grenadier moved into the aisle, its body tilted onto its blackened ankle stump.

In amongst the incessant clatter, his MPS vibrated. ‘Yes,
Davout
.’

‘General, we are holding, but casualties are heavy. A black Prefect attacks us.’

Francois leant back against the cube. SIS had betrayed him. ‘You must hold the line,
Davout
, I arrive soon.’

He raised his right arm, the MCD screen filled with the hazy overhead view from the Spotter. The Prefect hovered in the aisle, its exhaust heating the bodies scattered beneath it. A few soldiers peeked out from behind cubes, others groaned in the shadows. Two Semaphores remained at their posts, crumpled against the deck-car doors.

‘Zero-one-two, zero-one-three, zero-one-four.’

The grenadiers responded in unison, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘I will fire at the Prefect, you will attack.’ Francois did not intend to die today, or ever.

He stared at his MCD and waited for the Prefect to rotate. ‘Cease fire!’ In one movement, he stepped out, fired and stepped back. In the MCD’s display, he watched the plasma ball embrace the black casing in crackling whorl of electricity. The three grenadiers sprang, one contorted in mid-air, its abdomen bursting in a flash of molten yellow. The other two clung to the scorched black carcass.

As it sank, the Prefect’s shrieking engine blasted exhaust gases onto the floor and into smudgy clouds, showering the fallen with dust. Then it fell silent.

Francois peered out from the gap. Ten metres away, 0-1-2, and 0-1-4 lay over the Prefect; its weighted body forced onto the deck.

He stepped into the aisle, ‘Semaphores repair the deck-car doors. All others hold position and prepare casualty reports. Zero-one-seven, terminate the Prefect.’ Francois assumed this Prefect had the same
vulnérabilité
as the others. Behind its lidless eye lay the path to its
coeur noir
.

 The Prefect’s domed lens chimed onto the metal floor. A moment later, 0-1-7 plunged the incandescent tip of an ultrasonic cutter into the eye socket. Francois stared with satisfaction as serpents of black smoke curled around the grenadier’s hand.

He raised an eyebrow at the grenadiers’ twitching heads. ‘What is it?’

‘It makes a sound, sir.’

Francois lifted his MPS and listened.
beep-beep-beep
 . . . ‘
Planquez-vous!
’

The soles of his boots squealed under his twisting ankles. He dived into the gap, landing on his elbow plates, hands clamped over his ears, mouth forced open. The explosion bounced his body off the floor, scorching air howled through the gap and the metal cubes rang under a hail of shattering collisions.

Francois blinked and coughed in the swirling grime, muted cries filtered through his stunned eardrums. Steadying himself against a cube, he staggered into the flickering light.

Beneath a brume of singed particles, moaning bodies interspersed scattered limbs, a few metallic, many not. To his left, a burst of white powder marked the scorched seat of the Prefect’s suicidal detonation. Nothing lived in the blast radius.

Francois spun to face the unexpected
ding
. Deck-car seven’s doors slid apart. Morton stepped over a Semaphore, folded his arms and smiled.

Throughout the armoury, container shutters rattled up, releasing a resurgent hum. Francois raised his chin and lowered his Cogent. ‘What is your proposition?’

04:31 SUN 05:11:2119

Deck-Car 17-11-02, Provenance, LEO

The AH spread its arms, locking the deck-car doors open with a click. Steve stepped back. ‘Everyone stay still.’ His eyes narrowed in on the AH, ‘What do you want?’

‘I search for someone.’

Steve wondered if it had an accent or faulty programming, ‘They’re not here.’

It sprung, its right shoulder plate striking Steve’s rib plate. He flew backwards and crushed someone, something cracked. Kacee cried out.

The AH’s head swivelled, it jumped to its feet and faced Nik.

Dee dived, a ponderous movement to the AH. It sidestepped and elbowed his back, sending him crashing into the steel wall.

Steve lowered his shoulder and charged, his heavy contact having enough momentum to carry them both out of the deck-car. Before Steve’s pain could register, the AH had already calculated its next move. As they slid across the polished deck, its fist retracted.

Steve stabbed the Cogent’s barrel into its mouth, shattering composite teeth and exposing shiny root posts. He pushed away with his left hand and pulled the trigger with his right.

In the instant before they vaporised, the metal root posts provided a conduit to the AH’s composite alloy skeleton, its head erupted, sprouting celestial white fire from every cranial orifice. Steve stopped rolling and jumped up, his right arm numbed to the elbow. With his chest heaving he watched the AH’s sizzling protector suit bubble and its head splutter into a ball of flame.

When the screaming alarm finally impinged on his malice, he dashed back to the deck-car.

* * * *
 

Steve stepped off into MEDLAB 15. Dobriana headed for the monitoring station, while he and Nik carried Alex to the gurney.

An alarm shrilled and a band of red light flashed around the wall-ceiling junction. Steve’s head swung to the glass partition. Dobriana lunged, her hands stabbing at the console. The alarm cut out, followed a few seconds later by the flashing light.

Her voice gushed from the speakers, ‘Sorry. Penny trip biohazard alarm.’

Steve ripped off his gloves, ‘How long do we have?’

‘We are okay. Alex isolate alarm.’

He shifted his attention to Penny, the reflection from the orange revival suit added to her sickly hue. She looked up. ‘Why did I set off the alarm?’

He took hold of her shoulders, ‘It’s only residue. As soon as Alex is back online he’ll remove it.’

Her slender fingers moved to her neck. ‘I’ve lost my dolphin.’

‘Don’t worry, I know where it is. Can you help Dee; I think the drugs are wearing off.’ Steve swung back to the glass partition, ‘Activate the RMD.’ Dobriana sat down and slid her chair into the console.

The C-shaped RMD hovered into position over Alex’s head, extended its top scanner plate, and moved down the body. Steve pulled the bank of monitors towards him. Monitor 2 displayed Alex’s skeleton.

He’d spotted it on the first pass, attached to the underside of the right shoulder joint. ‘Stop there, Dobriana and zoom in fifteen.’

It differed from the other transducer. Below its conical cap trailed a wire. Steve shifted his focus right, Monitor 3 displayed the layer above Alex’s skeleton, a complex mass of actuators, tubes, and wires.

‘Superimpose an AH’s schematic and remove matched components.’ The display faded in and out; at least six components remained. Alex was unique.

‘Zoom by ten to upper left quadrant.’ Steve touched the monitor screen, ‘Remove the plating.’ His finger followed the yellow line from the shoulder into the chest cavity. It stopped on the small puck like exploder attached to the secondary PSU. Alex had been booby-trapped.

Steve turned. Dee, Kacee, and Nik sat in row of white chairs adjacent to the frosted glass doors. Dee slumped forward over his rumpled protector suit, while Penny’s hands probed his back. She didn’t have long and only Alex had the skill to remove the nanobytes embedded in her brain. Penny caught his gaze. ‘Is everything alright?’

‘I need everyone to move into the lobby for a while. Dobriana, open the doors please.’

Steve waited until they’d all left and the lobby doors had closed before turning to face the monitoring station. ‘Okay Dobriana, drop the tower.’

The RMD retreated and a four-metre diameter tube of composite metal descended from the ceiling, its luminescent inner surface compensating for the loss of external light. Steve wriggled out of his protector suit and tied the sleeves around his waist. When the eighty millimetre thick wall locked into the floor, he looked up. The ceiling parted, revealing a circular hatch. He knew what lay beyond, nothing. Designed for alien autopsies; the towers would vacuum any errors of judgement into space.

A screen curved around the tower’s interior. The main section displayed Alex’s skeletal schematic and a vertical strip on the right held the mini-screens. In the top mini-screen, Dobriana’s puffy eyes stared back.

Reaching down, he opened a drawer, his eyes resting on an obsidian scalpel. He couldn’t risk lasers.

AH’s had no ribcage. A front and back plate of moulded composite armour protected the chest cavity, a testament to the sensitivity of the dual micro-fusion catalysers contained within. He opened Alex’s protector suit and cut away the olive vest. ‘Are your blast shutters down?’

‘Going down now, sir.’

‘I’ll make an incision just below the chest plate, and my name’s Steve.’

‘Can I ask a question, Steve?’

‘Sure.’

‘Why does Alex look like you?’

Steve’s concentration broke into a wry smile. ‘We had the same parents.’ He inhaled, cleared his mind of sentimental distractions, and picked up the scalpel.

Alex’s skin peeled apart under the obsidian blade. Steve’s hand moved in an arc, the curved incision following the base of the chest wall. He reached down, pulled up the retractor, and lowered it into place. The layered skin parted, revealing the shining abdomen plate supported on a weave of interlocking alloy strips. This wasn’t a biomechanics lab so he’d have to improvise.

He pushed down hard on the abdomen and inserted a Finochietto retractor into the gap. With each crank of the lever, the high tensile strips creaked and resonated under the increasing compression. He twisted, placed the fingers of his right hand through the opening, and looked up. ‘Show me the chest cavity.’

The screen changed. Steve’s fingers separated tubes and ribbon cables before moving up into the core. A metal framework held the Power Supply Units and other rigid components. He moved his hand across the components until he found the warmth of the secondary PSU.

His index finger slid over the PSU’s smooth casing and rested on top of the exploder. A squeak pervaded the silence. He peeked down at retractor. If it slipped, the razor edged strips would spring back, and he’d have one spare glove.