The Blood Solution (Approaching Infinity Book 3) (32 page)

Stoakes still held the Suicide Knife in his right hand, but with a flick of his fingers, sent it to his free hand. He held it horizontally, below the plane of his eyes, and watched as Olaff dropped his own eyes slightly so that he was seeing his reflection in the blade of the Suicide Knife, in the Midnight Mirror.

Olaff blinked and looked unsure of what to do.

Stoakes laughed and plunged the Suicide Knife into his own belly, just under his ribs on the right side. With a jerk and a slight twist of the blade at the halfway point, he’d described a semicircle in less than a second, returning the blade to just under where he’d initially stabbed himself.

Olaff stared in disbelief then coughed blood as the backwards C rose up in bright red upon his belly through his pajama top. He dropped to his knees as his organs spilled out among a torrent of blood, then fell forward where he would have suffocated on his intestines strewn out upon the floor if he hadn’t been dead already.

The crown light crucifixion ring faded and Stoakes drifted downward. He rubbed his wrists and rotated his ankles. He was suddenly aware of the mother, Aami, and the father, Rossos, standing in the hall, staring into the room, transfixed by the horror they beheld. He stared back for a moment, shook his head in unpleasant resignation, and kicked off from the floor. His shadowy form passed between them and proceeded out of the house into the still dark of early morning. Immediately after his passing, the two fell onto each other, their throats neatly and almost bloodlessly slit. But now the blood was flowing and the cold from outside was somehow stealing into the house.

It had been two weeks now. Stoakes could see the Vine, a dim coil of dark thread in the ice blue sky, still days away. He had no doubt of its coming, of its arrival, but wondered how he would get to the sixth planet, where the Vine would make planetfall. The means existed, they had an advanced system of mass drivers that provided transportation between all of what they referred to as the Three Worlds, but security seemed abnormally tight for a civilian-run operation. He later overheard from some of the locals that many of the launch ways had been shut down or repurposed. Stoakes was certain that they were making preparations to repel the Vine. Despite the seemingly primitive conditions on this planet, their technology was substantial. There was no way they would be caught off guard by the Vine’s approach.

He could sense from the people the palpable tension of imminent conflict, and the launch way security did seem extreme—though he thought it consisted mostly of manpower—he couldn’t help marveling slightly at the lack of actual military action. Perhaps it was a question of range. He didn’t know how far out the mass drivers would still be effective, but was that their only line of defense? Stoakes didn’t think so. He hadn’t seen any military vehicles or any other hardware that might aid in the making or suppressing of war, but it was as if they were waiting for something. Perhaps it was simply for the Vine to come within range, perhaps there were more like Olaff, and that was the source of confidence he felt in the people. In the end, it didn’t matter. Stoakes had decided what he would do. Regardless of whether or not he could get to the sixth planet, Shaala, he believed it was called, eventually the Palace would come or a blind runner would be sent here. If it were the latter, he would simply walk back to the Palace. He had no doubt that he could accomplish that before they would move on to the next system.

So, since the mass drivers weren’t critical to his return, and they appeared to be this planet’s main offensive capability, he would do his part to ruin them.

Stoakes stood outside the launch way identified by a sign as IP32. The giant copper coils thrummed audibly and made the ground vibrate even as far out as he was. A heat shimmer could be seen coming off of them. Despite regular snowfall, the launch way and the surrounding grounds for several kilometers around, paved with some stone aggregate, were clear of snow and not even wet.. The coils were obvious, but Stoakes thought that the ground was warm and dry due to the heat rising up from the power plant he imagined was buried directly below.

Traffic came and went through the launch way constantly. Uniformed personnel were everywhere, but were singularly occupied by their tasks. The more Stoakes moved among them, the more he realized that their purpose was not security at all, but simply to ensure that nothing went wrong or was left undone. Despite the volume of personnel, Stoakes had no trouble finding and breaching the entrance to the power plant, housed within a low bunker alongside the control tower that was situated roughly midway along the launch way.

Stoakes employed several tricks which supplemented the stealth already provided by his Artifact. There were ample shadows, even at midday, and Stoakes was adept at getting behind people without their knowledge. His speed and dexterity made it easy to move from person to person, to
hide behind them
and stay out of sight. Stoakes reached the bunker and slid along the front of the building, blending in with the dark gray paint that covered it. There were two men standing at the entrance, checking people into the facility. Stoakes waited a few minutes, letting them admit a pair of technicians, then, when foot traffic around the bunker’s entrance was lightest, Stoakes slunk along the wall behind them, easily passing through the gap between the doors.

Immediately inside the bunker was what appeared to be the power plant’s nerve center, manned by four men at seated stations. He learned that this was an
inferior
fusion reactor, though what was inferior about it he didn’t know. He did know that if the magnetic field containing the reaction could be shut down or shifted, he would accomplish his goal. He also learned that the most recent admissions would likely be the only visitors for some time. The pair that they had just replaced left the bunker minutes after he’d entered, and the next shift change wouldn’t come for another four hours so he had ample time to work.

Stoakes passed through the elevator doors to find the car absent. He descended the dark shaft that led to the reactor itself under his own power. The shaft opened onto a corridor—a tube—lined with metal squares, like tiles, from floor to ceiling. The light was limited down here, which suited Stoakes just fine, and was provided mostly by various gauges, schematics, and access panels, breaking the monotony of the metal tiles at intervals. Stoakes soon gathered that this corridor circumvented the reaction chamber.

He made the two kilometer circuit around the reaction chamber and found that there were sixteen stations at intervals designed to regulate the magnetic field containing the reaction within the chamber. Ultimately, he was not concerned about being discovered. What could they do to him anyway? The technicians, he was convinced, could do nothing, but it wouldn’t do to be trapped underground when the reaction was allowed to spread beyond the chamber that housed it. In making the circuit, he followed a pair of technicians on rounds to check gauges and perform safety checks until they stopped to remain for a time before going back. Stoakes continued on and found that there was a team of two men for every four stations, a minimal crew that would never know the destruction that Stoakes had in mind.

Stoakes returned to the elevator shaft and jumped. His one-kilogram mass allowed him to rise up quickly and easily to the exit where he squeezed through the door like wet, black smoke. He paused for a moment before the elevator doors plotting the path his Knife would take. He didn’t want any undue mess to jeopardize what he was about to do to the reactor. In a blur, Stoakes was done. The four men at their stations slumped in their chairs, only one of them allowing a slow escape of blood to drop to the floor every six seconds. He approached the doors and jammed the Suicide Knife into the electronic lock, disabling it. He didn’t know if the guards outside would know he’d done this and didn’t care. He would be done soon.

He went back down the elevator shaft and moved swiftly, murdering all eight technicians with the Suicide Knife. He then disabled the power and back-up power to the four stations closest to the exit. Once the magnetic field gave out or was weak enough to allow the plasma to melt through chamber wall, the facility would be gutted by temperatures comparable to the hearts of stars. Stoakes didn’t want to remain for that.

There was no immediate indication that anything had happened, and Stoakes found himself dawdling, treading on the edge of annihilation for reasons he could not fathom. He cleared his mind and made for the exit, rising up to the bunker. As he went, something below gave birth to a low roar, which built and seemed to chase him. He still had the presence of mind to pass easily through the elevator doors, but
something
was coming which
did
threaten annihilation. He knocked the bunker door from its housing, scattering the two otherwise oblivious guards, and leapt up into the air, as high as he could. The nearby copper coils made a sudden and thunderous clang, the monotonous hum they produced changing character abruptly so that it was now like the lingering peal of a great bell that hung in the air for kilometers around.

Stoakes looked below. Smoke rose from the ground in sudden sheets. Then, as he watched, the ground for two kilometers around sank into a red hot crater of molten rock and steel. The mass driver coils, each standing five meters high and thirty centimeters thick, melted at the bottom and sank into the liquifying ground, toppling down with a combination of more loud clangs, wet squishing sounds, and bass rumbles.

Then something exploded, something big. Stoakes didn’t know what it was, perhaps the fuel storage for the vehicles that used this facility to travel to the other planets of the Three worlds. He was unhurt, but the force of the blast sent him hurtling further, helplessly through the air. It took him a full minute to right and orient himself. He drifted on the air and realized that he had an excellent vantage point. If he focused his senses on the infrared spectrum, he would likely be able to spot another IP to destroy.

He was in the air for nearly twenty minutes before something caught his eye. As he’d hoped, he’d come across another mass driver. This one was much bigger than IP32. Stoakes had limited control over his progress through the air, but he wasn’t without some degree of skill in making the wind take him where he wanted to go. He adjusted his body so that gradually he started towards this new facility. He allowed himself to sink back down to the snowy ground, and kicked off once again, approaching many times faster now that he knew where he was going.

His final landing put him about half a kilometer from the fence that hemmed in the facility. Trees like sharp green spikes poked up from the snow all around outside, providing him with excellent cover. The sun would be rising soon, but Stoakes was unconcerned. He would wait or he wouldn’t. He wasn’t in a hurry. Either way, he would destroy the place.

Using the trees for cover, Stoakes observed the main gate. The security here seemed much more intense than it had been at IP32. There were more uniformed personnel here, but these were dressed differently and every man and woman carried a sidearm. The sign upon the gate identified this mass driver as “Iss EP06”: Extraplanetary Zero Six. . . Was Iss the name of this place, this planet? Stoakes didn’t know, but he did know that this was a military installation, not designed for shipping or transportation, not within the Three Worlds, anyway. There was a fairly steady stream of vehicles entering through the gate, each stopping for a security check. Stoakes saw the trucks inside being unloaded, some of them into buildings like hangers, of which there were several, some of them into neat ranks upon the open pavement. He was sure that this was ordnance. He was also pretty sure that, given the size of the launch way, that EP06 and any other EPs would be able to reach the Vine before the other non-military grade drivers. He might be able to find useful information here.

Dark came, but the traffic into and back out of the facility did not cease. There were several ways Stoakes could have gotten in, but he opted for simply jumping over the fence to a position shielded from view by the stacks of supplies or munitions that had built up over the day. He crept along the island perimeters of the steel crates, under their shadow cast by harsh arc lights set up at intervals. He remained Dark, but didn’t feel that it was really necessary. The men unloading the trucks, their supervisors, and all the other personnel Stoakes had seen were plentiful, earnest, and hard-working, but it was beginning to seem that pistols and locked doors were the extent of their security. Stoakes was starting to get the idea that military affairs were new to these people, that the idea of sabotage was unknown to them. He sighed at the naivete of that kind of thinking, but was at the same time envious of a lifestyle that bred such a state of mind.

Among the row of hangers laid out before the coils of the launch way was a tower topped with a communications array, much like the one at IP32. Stoakes was pretty sure that this was the command center. He moved easily from the blocks of steel crates to the hanger on the far left of the control tower. Again, shadows were plentiful. Stoakes had no trouble passing unnoticed. At this hour, though the traffic and unloading continued, there were few coming and going from the control tower. Getting in proved simple. Finding what he was looking for didn’t.

Stoakes spent most of the night searching the command tower. The uppermost level, the observation deck, was somewhat reminiscent of the Root Palace’s war room, but on a smaller and more primitive scale. He did find a three-dimensional schematic there that showed what he assumed to be this planet and the approaching Vine’s orientation to it. The schematic was generated by a low table in the center of the room. The image was an amber wireframe that whizzed with static and scrambled in and out periodically, but across the planet were other lights which Stoakes further assumed were mass driver launch ways. Some of the lights were bigger than others, which might or might not indicate that they were extraplanetary drivers. Stoakes wasn’t sure whether or not it mattered. The larger launch ways would be the larger threat, and he couldn’t afford to consider the idea that his assumptions were incorrect.