The Trilisk Revolution (Parker Interstellar Travels) (17 page)

Siobhan’s
link told her that her stealth suit had failed. She started to laugh. It was a
bit late to the party. She realized she had no weapon. Shiny’s device lay on
the floor pitted with debris. She walked over and retrieved it. Her link could
not reach it. She saw it had been damaged, but not much.

I
suppose it could explode if damaged. I already narrowly lived through one
explosion.

Siobhan
holstered the Vovokan weapon. She grabbed her shock baton from her belt. The
weapon had no range, but it had one overwhelming advantage: it would feel great
to brain Spero with it. Siobhan stood up. The gash in the front of her suit was
a dangerous weakness: a single projectile in the right spot would kill her.

Siobhan
sent her surviving attendant through to the other wing. She staggered after it.
She had to find Spero now, because with Shiny’s weapon on the fritz, she would
not be able to stop him if he fled.

Should
I call the outside ones in, too? No. I need to know if he leaves, track him.

All
of her soldier robots were dead. That meant, unless it had been a perfect draw,
there were still some Spero security forces somewhere. Siobhan hoped that did
not include another of those killer robots. If she ran into one of those, she
would soon learn if Shiny’s weapon was disabled, because activating it would be
her only hope.

The
attendant passed through vast rooms in the center of the compound. These were
places for impressing guests: beautiful dining rooms, atriums, and VR parlors.
A long balcony overlooking the ocean. Two hallways with a dozen guest bedrooms.

The
attendant found a destroyed checkpoint. Blood bespattered the walls. Someone
had been killed there.

Spero?

The
attendant flew on. Siobhan walked through a wide room with a tiled floor
covered in robot parts. More things had died here. There were burn marks but no
blood.

She
heard a yell from her video feed. A man with silver hair in an exercise suit
ran feebly from the attendant. He had some kind of a mask over his face.
Something was wrong with his skin.

The
attendant identified him as a Trilisk host body.

Spero.

She
redoubled her pace, though it hurt, headed toward him. The attendant shadowed
him, but then its feed went dead. Siobhan left caution to the wind. She was so
close, and out of time. She had to finish him before anything big showed up.

She
climbed up stairs and advanced in a crouch toward the room where the attendant
had followed Spero. From her position, it looked like an old fashioned office.

Siobhan
saw his leg protruding from part of a big desk.

Frackjammers.
It would have been nice to have an excuse.

She
took a deep breath and entered the room. She felt another rush of adrenaline.
Her hand flexed on the handle of the shock baton. Through her link, she told
the weapon to discharge its entire energy reserve in the next strike: a lethal
dose, even for a superhuman.

Siobhan
felt no fear, even though his pistol could inflict lethal damage. She had the
shock baton ready. Siobhan charged the desk. She came over the top of it and
saw him.

In
one instant her brain registered the scene: a man in a gas mask, his face
oozing clear liquid and blood from his exposed skin around the mask, struggling
to target her with his pistol in a bloodied hand.

The
baton arced down onto Spero’s head. Blood sprayed across the wall holding fake
books. Siobhan blinked.

“That
was for my family,” she said.

Chapter 22

Telisa
tipped her head. Telisa3 crouched directly across from her, covering behind a
counter. They each wore the green circle jumpsuit of an android. Telisa had her
Veer suit underneath, and Telisa3 wore a Shiny-enhanced stealth suit under
hers.

You
take the left, I have the right.

Apparently
she understood herself, since when she charged forward behind the android,
Telisa3 went into action. Her faster duplicate vaulted over a counter and
tossed two grenades toward the lasers above before Telisa could even catch up
to the android she wanted to use for cover.

Telisa
got behind the android and fried it with her breaker claw from point blank
range.

Krumpf.

The
grenades exploded, sending metal parts flying. The android’s body protected
Telisa from the shrapnel.

The
surviving androids of the checkpoint ran forward to engage them, but the
disguises bought them the second they needed.

Blam. Blam, blam, boom.

Telisa3
shot four times before Telisa managed to kill an android with her smart pistol
and another with her breaker claw.

Telisa3
started to shoot at spots on the walls and ceiling. Pieces of the base flew
through the air in all directions.

Blam, blam, blam.

Sensor
stations.

Telisa
activated her stealth device. Meanwhile, she heard Telisa3 continue the
firefight. Telisa crawled forward out of cover, hoping she was undetectable.
Telisa shot a couple targets as they presented themselves, first an android and
then a heavier security machine. She noticed something wrong.

The
corridor is narrower. It’s closing up!

“They’re
closing it up!” Telisa3 transmitted. “Choose a side, quick!”

“Get
ourselves out of here,” Telisa said, running for it. “The people here are
prisoners, but they’re not in any immediate danger.”

“Yes.
Let’s focus on the Trilisks and we can free them later if we win.”

The
corridor closed behind her. Telisa had not even noticed that aspect of the
design earlier; she had assumed the androids and lasers were sufficient
obstacles to secure Skyhold.

The
Trilisks went to great lengths to make this place secure. Why didn’t they just
kill the people? Did the prisoners give them authorizations they needed?
Leverage?

She
followed Telisa3 toward an exterior docking station.

Clear
of the entrance strongpoint, Telisa realized she had no ride home. “How did you
get here?” she asked.

“Vovokan
shuttle,” Telisa3 said. “I’ve summoned it.”

Telisa
saw from the docking station status monitors that a ship was coming in.

“Can
it mate with the dock?”

“Not
this one. Quick spacewalk!”

Telisa
nodded and told her Veer suit to close up. Her faceplate emerged and covered
her head, but it had a hole right over her nose.

“Uh,
problem.”

“What?
Oh,” Telisa3 said.

So
that’s what I look like when I’m thinking hard.

“If
I could seal it for just ten seconds,” Telisa said.

“Got
it,” Telisa3 said. “Glue grenade.”

“Hrm.
Ah. Yes, I guess that works.”

“Here,
put this over the hole and I’ll use the grenade. I’ll get you free on the other
side.” Telisa3 handed her a piece of plastic from a shattered robot panel.

Telisa
hesitated.

If
you can’t trust yourself, woman, you’ve got issues.

“Okay,”
Telisa said. She stood over in a corner of the dock station and held the
plastic over her faceplate.

“Here
goes,” Telisa3 sent her over the link. She tossed the grenade at Telisa.

Fooosh! Whump.

Telisa
stared at fresh foam as it hardened around her faceplate. Her hand was stuck to
her face, too.

“You
can breathe?”

“Yes.
For now,” Telisa said.

“Good,
because more androids are here,” Telisa3 said.

Blam. Blam. Krumpf.

By
the Five.

“Okay,
here we go.” Telisa3 grabbed her free hand and led her toward the lock.
Telisa’s link picked up services from the Vovokan shuttle. Her attendants told
her it was just outside.

Telisa3
took a minute to get through some safety protocols on the airlock. Telisa’s
Veer suit was telling the lock computer its integrity had been compromised,
making the lock stubborn. Telisa helped things along by getting her suit to
shut up. That did not work, so she just re-cloaked using the stealth sphere.

“That’ll
do it,” Telisa3 transmitted. Telisa felt her suit shift subtly as the pressure
dropped. Then she was spinning away, but Telisa3 still had a grip on her arm.

Time
seemed to pass slowly. Telisa wondered how the other PIT team members had
fared, and how many casualties there had been among the Space Force and Earth
citizens.

My
mission here was an utter failure.

Telisa
felt the pull of a gravity-spinner stabilized deck beneath her feet. The
shuttle showed itself leaving Skyhold in her PV. Then she smelled solvent.
Telisa held her breath and waited.

The
dried foam blocking her view melted away. When it looked like most of it had
cleared away, she closed her eyes and dropped the plastic panel.

Nasty
as the solvent smells, it’s amazing they managed to get it as close to harmless
as they did.

Telisa
felt fresh air on her face. She told her faceplate to retract. Telisa saw her
duplicate and the inside of a Vovokan shuttle cargo area.

“We
made it,” Telisa3 said. Telisa saw blood on her arm.

“You
got clipped?”

“Yes,
my arm. The suit took the brunt of it.”

“Let’s
try to raise Cilreth,” Telisa said. She was already trying to open a
connection. “Cilreth?”

There
was no answer. She tried Jason. The connection went through.

“Telisa!
I thought you were dead.”

“Quite
the opposite. There’s two of me here. What’s happening?”

“A
duplicate? Telisa, I think Shiny’s done way too much damage. The Space Force is
reporting an all out attack. They say they’ve taken heavy casualties.”

“Of
course they’re saying that. If it’s the Trilisks, they want the populace on
their side, hunting for us. If it’s just the Space Force, well, they’ve been
expecting an alien attack. Fog of war and all that.”

“I’m
sorry, Telisa… I don’t think they could produce a deception on this grand a
scale… the web is filling with endless series of images, messages… CWS has been
checking it out. They think it’s legitimate. In fact, I’m about five minutes
from being arrested here for treason. The only reason they let me talk to you
is probably because they’re looking for you.”

Telisa
opened her mouth to answer when her PV exploded with warning messages.

“Skyhold
is breaking up!” Telisa3 blurted from behind her. “It’s being destroyed!”

“Telisa!
What’s that?” Jason asked.

“Skyhold
is taking fire. Pieces of it are flying away. I don’t see many surviving this,”
Telisa said.

“Can
you pick up survivors?” Jason asked.

“I—”

A
bright explosion lit the spacescape. Filters snapped on and cut video feeds
from outside the shuttle. More alarms went off.

No
one survived that.

“The
innocent ones on the list are dead,” Telisa said aloud with Jason on the
channel. “Plus the Five know how many more.”

There
was no answer. Telisa’s PV showed that the explosion had damaged their
communications equipment.

“Cilreth,
can you hear me?” Telisa’s link routed the request through her attendant
sphere.

There
was no answer.

“Maintain
course and speed,” Shiny’s voice said. “Planning rendezvous.”

“Shiny!
By the Five, what’s going on?”

Shiny
did not answer.

“Shiny!”

Chapter 23

Cilreth
struggled to shore up the Clacker against the cyber-attack.

The
rogue elements had expanded to a third of
Clacker
’s capacity. Cilreth
had launched three iterations of a cleaning program, all of which were running
on a subset of the ship’s cores. She split her time between writing the next
version and managing the ones she had running. The first version had been
broken by a counterattack. Thereafter it had made things worse. Cilreth had
almost lost control by the time she realized all of the version one programs
were pretending to be working but were actually busy doing nothing.

Cilreth
kept checking her newer programs. If she spent all her time on the next
version, her defense might collapse before she could push it out. She felt a
crisis coming on.

I
can’t do this. I’m losing.

“Hi!
What’s the situation?” Cilreth2 said, appearing behind her.

Cilreth
started, then stood up to yell.

“Where
the HELL have you been! Cthulhu awakes! Something has been trying to take over!
I half thought it was
you
!”

Cilreth2
lost her smile fast. “I’m on it. Fill me in,” she said, settling into a spare
chair. She closed her eyes and brought up her Vovokan work PV.

“A
pool of resources keeps going rogue. At first it was small and wasn’t growing.
Hiding. I killed off several batches, then it gave up hiding and went open
warfare with me.”

“Damn,
you’re not kidding. Who could it be? Trilisks?”

“Shiny,
I think,” Cilreth said. “Shiny or Trilisks. Can’t be Space Force. Unless it’s
an AI and it has good inside information.”

“Maybe
one of the PIT team got captured.”

“Work
on the next iteration of this,” Cilreth said. She passed herself the task. “I’m
going to work with what I already have out there.”

“Got
it. Me to the rescue,” Cilreth2 said. Cilreth was too beaten down to appreciate
the humorous enthusiasm.

They
worked silently for long minutes. Cilreth felt like she held her own at first,
then the slide continued. Her only advantage—owning more than half the
computing power—was almost gone.

“I
found a pattern. The new rogues always appear at the terminus of one of these
calls,” Cilreth2 said. “We can turn that system off here. I think it might stop
the spread.”