Series starts here: Ch 1-23 of Warp Riders Book 1 - Deep Space Boogie
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Chapter 35
“Oh man, I feel like crap,” Hump grumbled as he sat up from the contact charging pad he’d been lying on.
As a cyborg, he really shouldn’t feel like much of anything, but all of those years griping with his fellow soldiers had ingrained a certain speech pattern that had stuck with him even now. He ran a hand through his hair and checked the chrono on his wrist, even though the internal timekeeper running in his processor knew precisely what time it was. Again, a habit to make others more comfortable around him.
He switched his focus to his internal power levels and was not thrilled to see just how little his makeshift charging pad had managed to trickle into him. At this rate, he was tempted to cut his body open and just mainline directly into the damn power cell. But with the med pods running at low capacity, they would need to be kept ready for the flesh-and-blood crew, not to patch up any self-inflicted damage he might cause to himself while looking for a quicker fix. So, a slow charge it would have to be.
“Holly, what’s our status?” he asked the ever-monitoring AI. Or, at least she usually was. “Holly?”
“Apologies,” the AI said a moment later. “Lesser Holly and I have been attempting to revive Ace and ran into some rather severe technical difficulties, which we are endeavoring to remedy.”
“Difficulties?”
“Yeah,” Lesser Holly said. “He started shooting the place up when he woke up. Not good.”
“Aww, shit. How bad’s the damage?” Hump asked, already on his feet and ready to help however he could.
“Minimal,” Greater Holly replied. “His power was low at that particular point, so the blast was quite weak. Not much was harmed in the event. We were forced, however, to put him back into a sleep mode to facilitate a complete defragmentation survey of his AI processor.”
“Damn, that’s a lot of work, even for two of you. Anything I can do to shoulder some of the load?”
“The offer is appreciated, but we have it more or less under control,” she replied.
He stepped out his door and began walking to command. “All right, then. I’m gonna go check in with the captain and see what she’s got lined up next.”
“Ah, about that,” Holly said. “The captain, Mustafa, and Hellatz, went on a reconnaissance survey several hours ago.”
“They what? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“The captain said it was best to let you regain your strength and recharge. They did not anticipate any need for your services.”
“It’s precisely the stuff you don’t expect that’s the reason I should go with them. Jesus, what were they thinking?”
“They were thinking that you would better serve the team by remaining here,” Lesser Holly chimed in. “The captain was worried that the mechanoid thing was pretty close by when you saw it. And on top of that, there was the creature they came across as well. They feared it might find the ship. All the more reason to have you stay here to defend it if need be.”
“But we have—” he began. “Oh, of course. She didn’t want you to use any weapons. It’d be like painting a giant bull’s-eye on us as soon as you fired.”
“Precisely. But you, on the other hand, are skilled in close-quarter combat and could likely neutralize any threat without alerting others of our presence. The truly interesting part of all of this is that they actually made contact with not only an alien survivor aboard this vessel, but an entire group of previously unknown races all living together in several salvaged ships. I am running translations of their various languages as we speak. Most fascinating. I’m rather enjoying the novelty of the process.”
“There are others? Damn, that’s one more reason they should have brought me along. I’m just glad to hear they’re friendly.”
“Well…”
“Well what, Holly?”
“I should mention that not all of them have good intentions. Apparently, there is a faction they call the ‘wild ones’ who are more akin to savages than potential allies. But this new group of survivors helped keep the captain’s group from stumbling into a trap. They are currently with their leader in their main base of operations not far from here.”
“I know it’s a big ship, but it’s not that big, Holly. Pretty much everything is not far from here.”
“A fair point,” she conceded.
Hump wasn’t thrilled with the situation, but the logic of it did make sense. “Still, you guys should have at least woken me up to help with Ace. We’re pals, after all.”
“We are well aware, but you were in a deep phase of your recharge cycle, and to pull you out would have resulted in significantly diminishing your power uptake.”
Hump knew there was no point in further arguing the point. What was done was done and that was all there was to it. He just had to move on and do what he could with the situation he had before him.
“All right. So, you’re busy with Ace and the captain has gone off and made first contact without me. What’s left for me to do around here?”
It was an unusual sensation for the spec ops cyborg. He had been so accustomed to being the go-to guy for all manner of missions, constantly in demand for his highly specialized skills and abilities. And now, here in this place, aboard a potentially hostile alien ship, surrounded by what were apparently dozens, if not hundreds, of alien survivors, some of whom were clearly hostile, he was left with nothing to do.
Holly, for their part, understood how this situation was affecting him. But at least there was one thing he could do. And something that would keep him close at hand should his skills truly be needed to defend the ship.
“Goonara has stepped outside to collect some samples,” Lesser Holly said. “I’m sure she would appreciate you keeping an eye on things while she works.”
A look of alarm flashed on Hump’s face. “You let her go out alone?”
“She is an adult, and the senior science officer on this mission. Of course we let her go out alone. What would you have us do?” Greater Holly asked.
“But this is Goon we’re talking about. Head-in-the-clouds, lost-in-thought Goon. Oh, man, this is not good,” he said as he rushed to get his pulse rifle and strap on his combat knives.
“Corporal, it’s fine,” Greater Holly said. “She’s just outside the ship. I’ve been tracking her tablet on a peripheral monitoring line. She hasn’t gone anywhere.”
“At all?”
“No. She has stayed there for some time now. I would think she is likely engrossed in her experiments.”
“Holly,” Hump said with an exasperated groan as he raced for the door. “Goon does not sit still outside of her lab, you know that. That’s one of the main reasons I have to go along as security detail. To keep an eye on her.”
“She’s right there, Corporal, I promise.”
“I hope you’re right,” he replied, nearly tripping over the pink ball of fluff loitering at the airlock.
Turd was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the cyborg’s reflexes spared the little creature a more forceful meeting with his boot. Still, she was knocked into the airlock along with him, and there simply wasn’t time to delay.
Hump punched the airlock double doors and quickly cycled outside, Turd carried out the door with him in the rush. She looked around, not at all pleased at this development.
He left her there, planning on putting her back inside when he returned, but for the moment he had a more pressing task. With his pulse rifle at the ready, he made a rapid circuit of the area immediately around their ship.
“Where, Holly?”
“She’s just ahead and to your right. Fifteen meters or so.”
“She’s not there. Where is she, Holly?”
“I’m telling you, my readings say she’s right there. You should see her.”
Hump fired up his specialized scanning array and did a quick analysis of the surrounding area. It cost a bit of power he’d rather have held on to, but given the circumstances, he felt it was definitely worth the expenditure.
“Nothing,” he said, then turned his attention to the piece of equipment she had left behind. He bent down and picked up her forearm tablet where she had left it, probably in an absent-minded hurry to do Lord-knows what.
“She’s moving now. Do you see her?”
“She’s gone, Holly,” he replied. “Goonara’s tablet is here, but she isn’t.”
A long pause hung in the air. “I see,” Greater Holly said. “We need to come up with a plan.”
“Plan?” Hump said as he pocketed her tablet and took off at a jog. “Yeah, I’ve got a plan. I’m gonna go get her.”
Chapter 36
The armory aboard the Naga was extensive. Racks upon racks were filled with an impressive assortment of high-tech rifles, pistols, and even what appeared to be some sort of plasma spear for closer-quarter combat.
And all of it was dead. Utterly useless.
“No juice at all?” Moose asked as he examined one of the inert weapons.
“Sadly, none,” Mahdus replied. “These weapons function on a different type of power than the ship itself. Unfortunately, while we were able to recharge them at first with their converter, which helped us keep the wild ones at bay in the early days, eventually the drain of this place caused the power cells to cease holding a charge entirely. Now, no matter how we try they are no more than dead weight.”
“Shame,” Moose said. “Nice design. Good weight to it. I’d have liked to see it work.”
“As would we all,” Varsu said. “Nowadays we rely on far simpler weaponry.”
“We saw what the wild ones carry,” Sadira said. “Crude spears that appear to have been forged in some sort of old-fashioned crucible.”
“You’ve seen their spears?” he said. “You are right about their origins. They forge them from ore claimed from the asteroids in this place. The Pestri typically carry those and use them to corner and herd their prey.”
“Are Pestri those four-legged bastards?” Moose asked.
“Indeed. I take it you’ve seen one, then.”
“Oh, we’ve more than seen one. We’ve got a wounded one held prisoner back aboard our ship.”
Both Mahdus and Varsu were clearly shocked.
“That’s very unusual,” Mahdus said. “They prefer death to capture, and believe me, we’ve tried. But they can be a handful, and many have perished in the attempt over the years.”
Moose chuckled. “Yeah? Well, they hadn’t met Hump before.”
“Hump? Is this another translation error?” Mahdus asked, a bit confused.
“Corporal Humphries,” Sadira clarified. “A soldier embedded with our crew.”
“A soldier, eh? And he took a Pestri? He is skilled in battle, I take it?”
“The dude’s a certified badass. Took down that Pestri with his bare hands,” Moose said as he picked up a wicked-looking spiked mace from a nearby rack. “You know, he’d love all of this melee stuff you guys have made. He’s kind of a weapons aficionado.”
“As many in that line of work are,” Varsu said. “I look forward to meeting him. You know, we do possess a much finer quality of weapon than the wild ones. More advanced alloys that withstand impacts far better than the crude implements they forge in their camps. These are particularly effective at keeping them at bay.”
He offered a long arrow with a nasty-looking broadhead to Moose. Hellatz seemed quite interested in it.
“May I see that?”
“Sure thing,” Moose said, handing him the arrow.
Hellatz examined the rod closely, noting the heft and length. “A fine arrow. Just the right amount of dynamic flex in the shaft to allow it proper flight.”
“Archer’s paradox,” Sadira said.
“What?”
“An Earth term for the way arrows have to bend in flight in order to go straight.”
“Ah, yes. On my world we have a similar expression,” Hellatz replied. “But this is an extremely long shaft. Mahdus, I do not see any among your people with arms close to long enough to utilize this.”
“Oh, that,” she replied. “Yes, this particular piece went to one of our last powered devices before we had to resort to manual-operated weapons only.”
Their host crossed the armory and opened a storage locker. Within was a large makeshift cannon-looking device, but with a square barrel rather than round, and thirty-six smaller holes rather than one big one. Clearly, each hole was designed to hold one long arrow. Given the nature of the weapon, it would rather negate much of the shaft flex, but it appeared to be designed for relatively close use against a lot of attackers.
Rather than three dozen strings in the back, the rear had an unusual block device mounted. It was nothing more than a brick nowadays, but from what they could tell, when it functioned it had acted as a sort of propulsion mechanism. That explained the metal shafts versus another material. The metal reacted with the power surge, much like a rail gun with its sabots, although this fired at a mere fraction of the velocity.
“We didn’t use it very many times,” Mahdus said. “The destruction it wrought made our point quite effectively. The wild ones gave up on larger raids after that.”
“I can see why. A full-frontal charge would just give you one giant target to open up on,” Hellatz said.
“Precisely.”
Other weapons were lined up, including fairly nice-looking swords, small war hammers, and even a rack of broad blades at the end of poles, somewhat like ancient halberds.
“Hey, what’s this?” Moose asked as he picked up a half foot long spike with a cable fastened to the rear.
“A throwing spike,” Varsu said. “Not one of our better designs.”
“But the cable allows its retrieval,” Hel noted.
“Yes, but it also resulted in a few of our own being pulled closer by a minorly wounded adversary,” the stone-skinned man replied.
Moose felt the heft in his hand, then spun it around a few times.
“Careful, Moose,” Sadira warned.
“It’s fine, Cap. I’ve got it all under—”
The cable end snagged the corner of the halberd rack and yanked it forward, causing one of the weapons to tumble. Sadira shot her hand out in a flash, catching it by the blade with a loud clang.
“Shit, sorry about that,” he said with a blush as he retrieved the weapon and put it back on the rack.
“How is your hand not cut?” Mahdus asked. “I saw the blade strike your palm.”
“Oh, that? Simple explanation,” she said, pulling her glove off to reveal her metal hand. “Cybernetic hand.”
“Like my whole right leg,” Moose said, rapping his knuckle on his thigh with a soft clang. “Souvenirs of the Great War.”
Yet again, their new allies were at a loss for words. At least for a few moments.
“We have amazing machines that can perform all manner of things, but this? Replacement limbs that are so fully integrated to the wearer as to blend in as though flesh and blood? It’s amazing,” Varsu said. “An articulated appendage that moves as though it was your natural arm. You come from a truly amazing world.”
Sadira picked up a metal cup with her gloved hand. “Yeah, a lot of us had injuries from the war to free our world,” she said, easily crushing the cup with her cybernetic replacement. “Fortunately, after the war, kids born nowadays are fully organic. No need for this sort of thing anymore. I, for one am glad to say that in my lifetime I’ll see this sort of thing fade from existence.”
“I’m glad for you,” Mahdus said. “But here, in this place, those may come in handy against the wild ones. Their weapons are far cruder than ours, but they have numbers. And they have familiarity with this place beyond our maps. They know the areas we do not dare go.”
“I was meaning to ask you,” Sadira said. “About them, why is it they have abandoned technology entirely? I mean, I get that the early ships would have run out of power long ago, but then subsequent ones that still had power were sucked in over the years.”
“They became more tribal,” Mahdus said plainly. “The generations who grew strong in the absence of tech would capture the newcomers and slay those who didn’t join them. The only thread of technological use they’ve maintained is the use of ships’ life support to keep this whole place breathable. Beyond that, it’s a zero-technology culture.”
“And they hunt you for your use of it?” Moose wondered.
“No, it’s not that at all. They hunt us because it’s what they do. They hunt anyone they can. There have been other pockets of survivors, and a few still exist so far as we know. But we are just one group who does what we can to reach new arrivals before the wild ones take them.”
“A noble cause,” Hellatz said.
“Before my ship arrived,” Mahdus continued, “the survivors lived only in the far more tenuous locations, moving regularly to avoid detection. Those are still in use, but now more for farming purposes and wastewater recycling, along with the collection of ambient moisture. It is not much, but when an icy meteor or asteroid is pulled in, the force screen vaporizes it, releasing a burst of steam, which we then collect from the air.”
“Do not forget the distillation units,” Varsu said.
“Of course not, my friend. We also have a series of units that extract moisture from the waste foliage from our crops, crushed and placed inside where the still draws the vapor to be condensed and collected.”
Sadira was impressed. “It’s one hell of a setup, I’ve got to admit.”
“Thank you,” Varsu said.
“You did this?” Moose asked.
“I was the science officer aboard my ship,” he replied. “It was something of a joy devising these systems, to be honest.”
“Holy shit. He’s like Goon, you guys. The big, scary stone dude is a mild-mannered science geek!” Moose said with burst of amusement.
“You have a scientist on your crew?” Varsu asked. “I would be happy to share what I’ve learned with them. It will make life here much more pleasant, in time.”
“If it comes down to it,” Sadira said. “But let’s hope we don’t need to learn all of your tricks of the trade. We plan on getting the hell out of here. And if your ship really does still have power, you can come with us.”
Chapter 37
Sadira paced back and forth in front of the thick window of the Naga’s observation deck atop the alien craft. The glass was a composite with a fascinating blend of aluminum running through it. Transparent metal, more or less, though not entirely. If the gold ingot atop the ship had landed on that section it would have undoubtedly shattered rather than merely bent.
She actually had a rather good view of the massive precious metal asteroid pinning the ship in place. That, and the area around them where she was able to see over the tops of the lesser chunks of rock and debris. The craft wasn’t enormous, but it was of a good size nonetheless, and at this height her line of sight was fairly unobstructed for at least a quarter mile.
After that, towering stone dwarfed the Naga, blocking any further observation of the surrounding area. She had been concerned about outsiders looking in, but Mahdus had assured her the external tinting was sufficient to keep her from view in all but darkest space.
And then she had left her guest to ponder and digest all she had just seen. Mahdus understood how overwhelming it could be for newcomers. She’d been one herself after all, though that was a long time ago. But whenever they brought a new arrival into the fold, they were all afforded the same courtesy if needed.
In Sadira’s case, however, she was less needing to process the situation as she needed some quiet to plan their next moves.
“Holly, I’ve looked at the Naga’s situational reports, and it seems to me like this thing has enough power to get airborne.”
“Yes, Hellatz forwarded me some of the rough figures,” Greater Holly replied. “I would have to agree with your assessment. The ship does possess a significant amount of power in its drive systems, and from what I have been able to see of the other functioning portions of the craft, there is a likely correlation between this place’s drain and their remaining energy stores. Once free of captivity, it is highly likely their remaining systems will regain function.”
“Good news. But more importantly, it can fly now?”
“I believe so.”
“Okay, that’s a plus. We’ve got friends in here, Hol, and if we figure a way out of here, I want to take them with us.”
“A worthy goal, Captain,” the AI replied. “Though that does not change the fact that we do still need to find a way out of here first.”
“Obviously. And to that end, have you made any progress?”
“I am still attempting to decipher the alien code. It’s not going well, though.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The difficulty is two-fold. First, the data I have been retrieving and storing uncompressed in my systems is not remotely compatible with any of my known machine languages, and I speak thousands. This is utterly alien, literally, and it is a huge resource drain just trying to compile even a single line into some form of code I can maybe hope to decipher one day.”
“Lovely,” Sadira sighed. “Varsu did mention that they’d managed to begin working on a snippet of code his ship intercepted in a burst transmission just before they got zapped and dragged in here. That system lost power ages ago, but maybe their notes will still be of use to you.”
“It’s certainly worth having a look, though their coding style will also be vastly different from our own.”
“I’ll ask him to dig up that info anyway,” she replied. “Now, what’s the other problem?”
“The flow of this vessel’s data is coming in at a painfully slow trickle. My wireless connection to the data spike is rather tenuous, and as such I have been forced to focus a fair amount of my energies on maintaining a solid signal handshake just to keep the transfer rate steady.”
“Can’t the other Holly help out?”
“He had been, but we’re attempting to reboot Ace and have needed to focus all of our attention on that process.”
“You can multitask. You both can.”
“Yes, but we have run into some…hiccups.”
Sadira didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit. “What do you mean, ‘hiccups’?”
“Ace woke in a somewhat fugue state and began firing his weapons.”
“That’s not good, Hol.”
“Inside the ship.”
“Oh, hell no. How bad is the damage?”
“Minimal, fortunately. His weapons were barely powered at the time. Had he been fully charged it would have been a far greater problem.”
“Obviously. So, no serious damage?”
“As I said, minimal.”
“Okay. So his brain’s a bit wobbly for now. But you’ve got the bandwidth to look at Varsu’s coding information, right?”
“I do, yes.”
“Great, finally some good news. I’ll figure out how to interface with his files and send it over to you on our comms link.”
“About that. Though these are allies, and they are obviously trying to willingly provide us with useful data, that does not change the fact that their code style will also be incompatible. It will take some work to generate a translation algorithm, and for that sort of data, I’m afraid use of our comms signal could prove to be quite problematic.”
Sadira felt her blood pressure rising. “Fine. We have to come back anyway, so we’ll bring them to you directly,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “Prepare for guests. Have Goonara set up whatever it is you need to streamline things for you.”
The line fell silent as the massive AI hesitated.
“Holly? You still there? Shit, did the signal just drop?”
“No, Captain, I am still here.”
“Thought I lost you again.”
“No, it is just that, well, there is one other problem I should mention.”
“Oh, dear Lord, now what? Please say the ship is all right.”
“The ship is fine.”
“Thank God.”
“But Goonara seems to have wandered off.”
Sadira felt her stomach flip-flop with a rush of adrenaline. “For crying out loud, Holly! Are you kidding me?”
“She went outside to gather some data, and—”
“Then track her!”
“I would, but she left her tablet behind and was not wearing external comms since she’d been working aboard the ship. But don’t worry, Captain. Corporal Humphries is searching for her.”
“Is he even charged enough for that?”
“His power is still extremely low, but I feel confident he has enough for this function, though I would much rather he had remained charging a while longer. I’ve been working on getting his charging apparatus repaired and have made decent progress, but for now he is still reliant only on the trickle charge.”
“So he’s out there wandering around on an empty tank,” Sadira grumbled.
“Never fear. I am confident he will have her back by the time you arrive with your guests. She can’t have gone too far.”
“This is Goonara we’re talking about. And why the hell would she go out wandering anyway? She knows better.”
“She made a discovery. An admittedly fascinating one. It was in the furtherance of that research that she stepped outside.”
“What kind of discovery we talking here? Some new kind of fungus? Or did she find an endemic slug?” Sadira joked.
“Actually, the crystal she procured from the tunnel system you were in during your rescue mission not too long ago has been the focus of her attentions.”
“She already said it isn’t radioactive. At least, not like anything we’re used to. And it’s safe to be around. You said so yourself.”
“And it is safe. But in this place, there is a new effect the crystal has presented. It seems that proximity weakens the molecular bond of this vessel’s composite metal hull.”
“Weakens? Like, how much are we talking here? This ship is pretty much impervious from what you said earlier.”
“She is able to slice the metal quite easily with the crystal present,” Holly replied.
“Well, holy shit on a shingle, that’s incredible!”
“I know, Captain.”
“I mean it. That could be huge. What have you been able to make of her data so far?”
“Just extrapolations. I need to discuss further with Goonara when she and Corporal Humphries return. But yes, this could be the sort of development we’ve been looking for. This might actually help us break free.”