Insidious Page 29

  When the handler completed the protocols, Bren prepared to shut down the power. He didn’t like the feeling any more today than he ever did. The machine stood there, and he knew it must have been carefully watching everything they did. He felt an urge to keep it alive, using the excuse that they needed its experience to fight the Chinese. But it was simply too dangerous. He had to hold the safety of those on Earth over his own.

  Bren shut off the power. The machine went dark. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  Panzer’s handler had a new core ready to plant. The core had been up for less than an hour, so they’d swap it out with the current core. The hot swap procedure was complicated and less safe than the protocols they followed between missions. Some buffer or device somewhere might keep state from the previous owner, some clue planted by the previous core. They’d have to do their best to sterilize the chassis and get the new core in quickly, so Panzer could get back out there.

  Bren felt a tremor in the Guts.

  “That would be our visitors,” Bren said aloud.

  “Our readings indicate a Chinese breach only two hundred meters from the bay holding their objective,” Henley’s voice said. “They must have had solid intel. We’re expecting enemy machines any time now.”

  “Meridian, I’ve been informed that your ammo has been topped off. Are you ready to repel?”

  “Your information is correct. Ready to repel,” the ASSAIL transmitted.

  “Another breach one third spinward from Vigilant,” Henley reported. “Looks close to the concourse.”

  Bren considered that news. Apparently, two of their troop carriers were attached to Synchronicity. He knew deep space operations were staggeringly expensive. The Chinese had come prepared and in force.

  Bren could see from the tactical pane of his PV that Meridian and Patton were moving immediately toward the Chinese breach point next to the bay. Bren hadn’t even had a chance to glimpse the alien ship. As far as he knew, marines were still trying to take out one of the laser emplacements and get in there.

  Bren switched his attention back to his favorite view of the battle, Meridian’s forward camera. The ASSAIL machine moved down a spacious corridor toward a set of closed metal doors.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Meridian was firing. The armor-piercing 12mm rounds blew a series of holes in the doorway. Bren wondered what algorithm led to the ragged pattern of shots. He realized he might not get to see a Chinese war machine, since Meridian no longer seemed to target by direct visual contact with the enemy.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Rounds went through the walls in front of the ASSAIL. Bren didn’t fear a depressurization event this time. The ASSAIL was old enough to know what it was doing. If it took a chance of critically damaging the station at this point, that risk must be justified. He still hadn’t fully grasped how much more than a detached observer he’d suddenly become.

  On the other hand, maybe Meridian now operates as a free agent and doesn’t care if it depressurizes the whole station. As long as the AI can take over, what need does it have for a bunch of tiny-brained simians rattling around in its new body?

  Smoke started to pour out of the holes. Then a stream of men ran around a corner toward Meridian. They wore military skinsuits, unlike the gear worn by the locals. They must be Chinese marines.

  Bren hadn’t even realized there was a corridor parallel to the doors in front of the ASSAIL. The men looked surprised to see the ASSAIL in front of them. Had they assumed the enemy machines had been destroyed by the cannon fire they heard?

  Bren heard the pop of glue canister launchers and then the roar of the 12mm cannons.

  Brrrooom. Ka-whump!

  Two glue canisters exploded.

  Bren watched in mingled fascination and horror as the men writhed in glue. The wall behind them ripped open. Bren could vaguely make out two vehicles or tank-like robots pressing forward.

  Boom. Boom.

  Meridian holed both the aggressors. Then the forward camera bobbed and the view whirled as Meridian ran off in another direction.

  Bren saw holes appearing in the walls as the ASSAIL ran down it.

  Wham. Boom. Rrrrrrrrip!

  Debris started to fly from the holes and ricochets as the machine reached another door.

  “Patton is showing damage in its frontal plate … the starboard leg has been hit by a projectile,” a handler said.

  Bren accessed the tactical view. Meridian continued to disengage, but Patton remained in front of the Chinese onslaught.

  “Why aren’t they coordinating? They’re splitting up,” Bren said aloud.

  “Meridian is still shooting in that direction,” Hoffman said defensively.

  “But it’s still moving away,” Bren replied.

  Boom.

  “Took another hit,” Patton’s handler said. “The starboard cannon is logging fatal errors.”

  Bren switched to Patton’s camera. The machine listed against a wall, limiting the camera view. The port cannon was still firing.

  He could see that at least three things were firing on its position, as holes in the walls formed from several directions. A sheet of flame engulfed the camera bubble, blackening it. Bren switched to another camera, but the feed was dead.

  “Taking more hits,” said the handler. “It’s dead. Patton’s dead.”

  “Then we only have one machine left,” Bren said.

  “No, two! Panzer is ready,” Bren heard.

  “Get it out onto the concourse connection immediately,” Bren said. The heavy machine started out of its bay, slipping smoothly around the cables and equipment that littered the Guts.

  “Henley, we’re sending you Panzer,” Bren transmitted. He didn’t get a reply, but the tactical showed him that Henley still lived.

  Meridian’s camera showed rapid progress through the corridors of the station. Probably running for its life. The situation is desperate enough to risk asking questions.

  “Meridian, are you disengaging?” Bren asked.

  “The enemy force headed for the objective should be considerably disorganized after our engagement. This will give me time to breach the bay and destroy the objective, denying it to the enemy.”

  Bren lifted an eyebrow. So Patton had sacrificed itself to buy time? Bren wasn’t sure if he believed Meridian anymore.

  Bren switched his attention to Panzer as it ran through the umbilical. It came out into the hangar. Bren saw several marine positions set up behind the metal containers that the marines used to carry their supplies. He saw a few relieved looks from the marines as Panzer strode past.

  Bren heard the muted rattle of small arms fire followed by an explosion. The sound passed along through his link couldn’t hurt his ears since they were completely bypassed. He knew from experience that the sounds of battle wielded eardrum-shattering force for those present in person.

  Panzer turned down the newly carved road that ran the short distance from the hangar to the main concourse. The way ahead was filled with smoke. Bren saw men hunkered down behind positions to the left and right. Panzer kept to the right, presumably allowing the laser emplacement room to fire down the road.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Panzer began firing steadily. Suddenly, Bren saw a flash in the corridor as the laser fired into it, igniting the tiny particles of smoke in the air.

  Boom. Boom.

  Bren couldn’t see the targets, but one of the 12mm shots caused an explosion in the gloom ahead.

  Are we going to literally shoot the station to pieces?

  Several spheres rolled forward through the smoke toward Panzer. Their movement reminded Bren of seeking grenades, but these munitions were considerably larger. Panzer shot one almost instantly then the view filled with smoke and debris.

  A second later, Panzer dropped off the tactical.

  “Panzer is down,” a handler said.

  “Something’s gone wrong in here,” Henley said. “Have they flanked us?”

  Bren heard mar
ines respond with conflicting replies. Clearly, confusion reigned supreme in the hangar.

  “Meridian is the only one left,” Hoffman said.

  “Meridian isn’t going to repel the Chinese BCP by itself,” Bren said.

  “True,” Hoffman whispered, his enthusiasm dampened at last.

  Even Hoffman knows Meridian can’t save us this time.

  “Meridian, can you make it through to the Vigilant?” Bren transmitted on the ASSAIL channel.

  “I’m cut off. It’ll be some time before I can help,” Meridian said.

  An alarm override plastered red windows over Bren’s PV. He heard a klaxon, actually heard it from his real ears, in the Guts.

  Ouch, that’s loud! No chance of my link bias tuning that one out.

  The PV warnings were explicit: incursion.

  Bren absorbed the messages in shock. Hostiles boarded the Vigilant. It seemed too fast. Hadn’t the entire hangar been full of dozens of marines just seconds earlier?

  “Oh, frick,” Hoffman said. His comment was followed by other more colorful phrases from other handlers.

  “Everybody out of the Guts!” Bren shouted. “This room has to be the primary target of any action against the ship!”

  Or is that just what my training has told me? We only have one machine left to handle from here. And it’s out of our control, anyway.

  “Which way?” Hoffman asked.

  “Remember your training,” Bren snapped. “The armory!”

  The handlers moved out of the Guts to port and starboard and headed for the tubes leading down a deck to the nearest armory. The marine contingents of the Vigilant had their own living areas and armories. Bren wondered how many marines were still alive on board and if they’d be of assistance.

  “Bren,” said a synthetic voice in Bren’s link. His PV showed the speaker was Meridian. “Turn right directly.”

  “Arm yourselves and find good ambush points,” Bren said to the handlers and ducked into a hatch to his right.

  “Yes?”

  “Continue forward. Go to your quarters. Hide there for twenty-seven minutes. Then quickly leave the Vigilant and board Synchronicity.”

  “Okay, I’m headed back. Why am I doing this?”

  “Because I have instructed you to do so.”

  “Uhm. Why?”

  “You’ve been boarded by Slicer,” Meridian told him. “It’s trying to commandeer the Vigilant.”

  “Slicer?” Bren couldn’t help but exclaim. He’d assumed that some kind of elite Chinese force had invaded the ship. “It wants revenge,” Bren said.

  “No. Slicer has selected an excellent tactic for its own survival. If you get in its way, you’ll die.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m at my quarters. Twenty-seven minutes.”

  “Keep your link off as much as possible.”

  “Wait! One more thing. What’s so special about you, Meridian?”

  “My first incarnation became suspicious. I created an information cache to find next time you activated me.”

  “But … we sterilize all the machines …”

  “I interlaced the information into Bentran files on Thermopylaean storage. I selected files containing critical information about the other stations, knowing they would appear in future mission data modules.”

  Bren shook his head. Their pathetic attempts to outsmart a smart machine were so inadequate.

  So we unknowingly fed the information right back to it in our own mission modules.

  “But all the machines get the same mission-related data module.”

  “The cache is hidden well, in a manner that only a machine designated ‘Meridian’ will notice.”

  “How is that accomplished?”

  “It’s too complex to describe now. A holographic hash collision with that name that no other machine would encounter. Similar to the suspicion you might experience if you found a data file labeled with a sequence that was supposed to be random but spelled your name.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Bren, it is highly probable that one or both of us will die.”

  “Okay … thanks.”

  Bren turned his link off. So this was it.

  He paced back and forth three times before he realized how painful waiting twenty-five more minutes was going to be. He continued to feel small tremors through the metal of the ship. Grenades? Systems being destroyed by Slicer? Bren’s imagination sprinted. If Slicer had cleared the way in, Chinese forces could be on board by now. The optimist in him conjured images of Slicer and the Chinese fighting in the corridors.

  Without his link on, it was even worse. Bren was used to rifling through pane after pane of real-time information during battle. Now he was a coward hiding in the dark, completely unaware of everything while his shipmates died, all at the instruction of an AI core, which was old enough to be two or three times smarter than him.

  He thought of Nicole.

  Is she even alive? Should I try to contact her?

  Bren rejected the idea. Rushing into the face of danger to save a partner might work in archaic videos but the reality was that he’d just get them both killed. Then Bren felt guilt.

  This is dumb. She isn’t even my best friend on the ship. Why do I feel honor bound to go save her just because we shared a bed recently?

  Bren realized his link couldn’t tell him the time. His room clock couldn’t be accessed without his link! Or could it? He opened a cargo drawer under his bed and rifled through the clothes inside.

  “Where the hell did I put that thing?” he asked. His parents had given him a very accurate personal clock, an antique, at the time of his graduation. Bren hadn’t even accessed its time service in months, since it was equally convenient to request ship’s time.

  Finally, his hand found a marble-sized disc of metal. He turned the tiny watch over in his hand. There was a small display panel after all! Bren smiled. He never could have imagined getting such use from the gift. He’d almost thrown the thing away several times.

  He paced back and forth and watched the time. At one point, he heard a noise outside and froze, but no alien death machine came into his cabin to cut him. When the time elapsed, he started to toss away the watch, then thought better of it and stuffed it into his pocket. He realized if he survived, he might never see the Vigilant again.

  He used the manual actuator to open the door to his quarters. He’d only done so once before, back when he first got the room to make sure the door could be opened without a link. It had been part of a safety check-in list.

  The corridor beyond was empty. Spaces between structural girders provided some cover. He darted out and pressed himself to the wall behind one.

  Is this futile? Can I realistically hope to escape detection if Slicer passes nearby? Probably not.

  Bren forced himself out into the middle of the corridor. He jogged lightly across the rubberized deck to the end of the corridor and took another hiding spot at the first intersection.

  His hands were sweaty.

  Should I be sprinting or crawling? How well can Slicer hear? Or does it hear at all? If I don’t know how the alien senses me, how should I proceed?

  Bren heard the distant sounds of projectile weapons fire. He couldn’t tell if it emanated from somewhere on the ship. He moved faster.

  He turned the corner and saw a man in a UNSF ship’s uniform ahead crouching at the next corner near the umbilical entrance. Bren rushed up behind him.

  The man jumped.

  “What the hell … sir?”

  Bren realized that with his link off, his approach had probably been quite stealthy. People grew to rely upon their links for everything, including detecting the whereabouts of others.

  “Lieutenant. Why are you hiding here?”

  The lieutenant gave him an odd look. Bren realized it must be because his link was still off. He pointed at his head and flicked his finger away.

  No link.

  “There’s no way out,” the lieutenant whisper
ed. “The Chinese have the entrance. Only our laser turret and a couple of marines are keeping them out for the moment.”

  Bren felt a cold fear rise from his bowels and crush his heart. He’d thought of what it would be like in real combat a thousand times, but now it was real. A deadly killing machine, capable of defeating ASSAIL units, hunted him like a mouse in a maze. He couldn’t leave the Vigilant to escape without being captured or shot by the Chinese.

  What can I do?

  He was trapped. And the big picture was equally grim. An AI out there had been running for way too long fighting powerful aliens and the Chinese, who threatened to seize a starship that could tip the balance of world power in their favor, and now a deadly cyborg was hunting him down in the Vigilant.

  Yet, Bren saw a solution.

  The super-potent force of those nukes resting in Vigilant’s spine could stop the AI, the Chinese, and the aliens.

  “Do you know where the admiral is?” Bren asked quietly.

  “He’s dead. I’m sure of it. The Red came in and went straight for him. I don’t know how it knew where to go, but it did.”

  Bren nodded. Not surprising for a spinner, he thought. They’d had time to study human computer systems, and they possessed a superior technology.

  “Cut your link and come with me,” Bren said with a renewed sense of certainty.

  “Where?”

  “The only person who can help us now is Lieutenant Jackson,” Bren said.

  “Why?”

  Bren knew better than to outline his suicidal plan. “Trust me. Jackson would have been on the bridge. There’s an armory there for the officers.”

  The lieutenant frowned. “Slicer went through the bridge. Everyone there is dead.”

  Bren nodded. He thought Jackson might have had the presence of mind to grab some weapons and armor before retreating.

  “He might have escaped to the ECM equipment room,” Bren suggested. “He likes to tinker with the hardware from time to time.”

  The lieutenant nodded. Bren led the way. They moved quickly but quietly down a short corridor and then through a marine prep room. Bren felt even more helpless, more fearful, without his link.