Vanguard Rising: A Space Opera Adventure Page 3

  With that, she spun on her heel and strode across the darkly lit depot toward one of the rovers. The two raven-haired abbots, whom Irena had yet to form any kind of relationship with since she’d arrived, shared an inscrutable look as they followed Dr. Osho.

  Siegfried and Darnesh likewise wasted no time.

  Irena had to almost jog to keep up with them. “Is this normal? I thought the abbots are self-sufficient—can’t they just fix the rover and return? Can’t we send a service drone?”

  Without turning his back, Siegfried shrugged. “I’m sure Dr. Osho will explain. Keep up; we don’t want to waste time.”

  This was all happening too fast. No one told her she would have to venture out of the facility. She was here for science, not exploration or rescue missions that could be handled by drones or abbots.

  But if they were going to rescue abbots… What could have happened?

  She didn’t want to become another Romanov.

  She rushed to keep up and joined the others at the eight-wheeled rover.

  With its glass canopy, it looked like a giant pill on wheels. A V2 abbot arrived with a pallet of hab suits. Darnesh helped Irena into hers. “Climate controls are in the suit’s OS,” he said, his voice coming through the internal communication systems embedded into the helmets.

  Irena thanked him and set the temperature to a comfortable sixteen degrees Celsius.

  Dr. Osho approached Irena, checked her suit fitting, and nodded.

  “Dr. Osho, are you sure you want me to go with you? I’m not sure what I can offer. I have no experience with damaged equipment…”

  “I want you with us. It’s a learning experience.”

  “But the service drones—”

  “All allocated. It’s not just a rescue job, my girl. When we’re there, we’re going to be installing some new q-bit analysis cores to upgrade the station’s prediction models. That’s why I instructed the abbots already there to stay put. We can’t risk losing them. And that could happen if they simply returned on foot—poor Romanov succumbed to…”

  “What about lifting them out with the tri-copter? I don’t mean to question you—”

  Dr. Osho took Irena by the elbow and led her to the rover, adding, “Our tri-copter is no good up there. It’s too densely forested and the winds too unpredictable. Besides, we’ll need the abbots’ help to get the q-bit cores online, and together we should be able to fix whatever damage has caused the network outage. It’ll be good for you to see what the observation station is like. You’ll probably have a few shifts there over the course of your stay.”

  “Right… I see.” Irena’s head buzzed with the speed of everything as she took a seat in the front. The abbots had finished loading the rover. Siegfried and Darnesh had got in, sitting in the row behind her. Osho finished the loading, took the seat on Irena’s left, and pulled the curved glass canopy shut.

  “Okay, we’re ready to go,” Osho said. “Strap in, everyone, the route can get bumpy.”

  Irena strapped her safety belt around her body and breathed against its auto-tightening pull. The electric motors of the rover wound up, and the vibrations shook through the chassis. The vehicle’s computer locked on to their destination and piloted the crew away from the Earth Restoration Project facility.

  Osho smiled at Irena, her old hazelnut brown eyes little more than thin slivers behind crinkled lids. At a hundred and twenty, she looked not a day over sixty. Irena hoped she would wear as well in another eighty-six years.

  If she survived, that is.

  “Don’t look so worried,” Osho said. “These days, this kind of task is considered routine.”

  “So was a frontal lobotomy once,” Irena responded.

  A series of chortles came from behind her. When she looked over her shoulder to nervously smile at the two men, she recognized her own tension in their eyes.

  “At least we have the weather for it,” she said, trying to lift the mood.

  “For now,” Darnesh intoned, his words heavy with a foreboding Irena really didn’t appreciate. Siegfried and the two abbots were more focused, their expressions neutral behind their visors.

  “It’s amazing to think this was all barren tundra just a few generations ago,” Irena said. She turned her attention to the front windshield and made no effort to hide her awe. “You wouldn’t even think there was a problem with the planet looking at all this.”

  “I don’t know,” Siegfried said. “It’s not normal to have tropical-born trees growing this far north in the Arctic. That in itself represents a problem, does it not?”

  She wanted to respond to him but bit her tongue. There was no point adding more tension. Tall, thin trees reached toward the bright sunshine, creating a tunnel with a rich blue circle at its center. Their woody limbs reached up as if they were faithful members of a congregation beseeching their lord. But Irena could not help but see the color of dead skin in the trees’ dull bark.

  That same image, of decaying flesh, rose up in Irena’s mind: the bodies she had found upon first arriving at the facility. Three earthers dead at the base of the entrance tower. Their arms stretched out, palms flat against the white ceramic walls as if prostrating themselves against the gates of heaven for salvation, but finding only impotent pity.

  She closed her eyes, willed the image away, and then cast her gaze back on the blue sky. The scene had already changed, however. A diaphanous sheet of fragmented altostratus cloud scudded by, suggesting in its mercurial fashion that rain was on its way.

  “You see that?” Irena said, pointing upward.

  The other scientists looked up through the glass rover ceiling.

  “Bad weather’s coming,” Darnesh grumbled, his voice that of a preacher warning his congregation of the coming apocalypse. That metaphorical ship had sailed long ago, however.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s just remain focused,” Osho said. “We’ve forecasted clear weather for at least the next eighteen hours. It’s just a small cloud formation. We’ll be back at base enjoying cold beer and hot food long before any rain falls.”

  Irena wanted to ask, “What if the forecast was wrong?” but clenched her jaw tight and said nothing. Instead she looked out the glass canopy, watching the landscape go by as the rover made its way farther north.

  Movement caught her attention.

  A shadow in the trees shifted in their direction.

  Something was following them—or perhaps she was just imagining it, letting her fear get the better of her. She thought about saying something, but the tension was already high, and she didn’t want to risk the embarrassment of mistaking it for one of the few remaining animals that roamed the lesser-radiated areas. She looked away, focused on her terminal, deciding it’d be a better use of her time to go over some datasets and try to forget about being outside, on Earth, while something stalked them from the shadows.

  4

  Harlan jogged down the corridor toward the sound of the scream. The tiny spider footprints were here also, indicating where it had originated before following him into the bar. The AR display showed him the external and internal climate among other metrics.

  Now that he was higher up in the colony, just a few levels away from the moon’s surface, the temperature was dropping. He pulled his biker’s jacket closer around his body and increased his walking speed.

  The smart-magnets weren’t conducive for anything more than a brisk walk; they couldn’t activate and deactivate fast enough for a sprint, and the corridor’s narrow and low ceiling meant that it wasn’t advisable to switch them off and try to float through.

  The red dots turned left at a junction.

  Thick cords of pipework and conduits met at the bulkhead and twisted off into the depths of the colony. Several of the strip lights overhead thrummed, their luminosity pulsing as though the place had a heartbeat. His own, according to his monitoring systems, had increased steadily until it now rested at nearly eighty percent of his maximum.

  Low gravity and claustrophobic
tunnels were clearly as effective a workout as his regular callisthenic routine back on Atlas. Sweat pooled beneath his mechanic’s overalls despite the chill. He wiped his hand across his brow and over his close-shaved head.

  No wonder humanity had replaced maintenance workers with V1 abbots. Must have been hell in the days before the Great Build when humans had to construct their own rockets and other space exploration equipment.

  Even worse for those before them, having to toil in mines and factories.

  Harlan mentally saluted all those men and women and chased the red dots until he came to a door leading into a workshop. It featured a security panel where the abbots would attach themselves to gain access. He reached into one of his many pockets, pulled out a slim black card, barely the size of his thumb, and placed it against the control surface.

  He waited as a green dot blinked—indication that it was connecting to the Quantum Computer Array for verification of the ID.

  Harlan set a reminder to himself to thank the shady dealer who had hooked him up with the skeleton key that allowed him to skirt the outer security protocols of the QCA. It was well worth the five favors Harlan had agreed to barter for the device. Especially as the dealer only had one more favor to call in.

  Harlan pushed the door open slowly, using all his augmented senses to reach out within the darkened room beyond. His system showed metrics pertaining to magnetic fields, temperature fluctuations, sources of electricity, light degrees, humidity, oxygen levels, and early warning for toxins.

  All came back unchanged. Negative.

  The room was effectively dead.

  Taking his ID card, he eased the thick metal door open further with one shoulder, his weight on his back foot, ready to dive out of the way if stealth or masking technology somehow fooled his sensors.

  Still nothing.

  Satisfied it was safe to enter, he stepped over the threshold and switched on the light. The same rhythmically pulsing lights doused the small workshop in even, white light from all angles to ensure no shadows. Important for delicate electronic tasks.

  The area was large enough for half a dozen abbots.

  Steel worktables took up the center while other ad hoc stations and cabinetry lined the walls. On the tables were five electronically controlled mechanical devices in various states of disrepair. Wires, chips, and other equipment lay strewn about, as though the engineers had sudden reason to leave.

  The stench of solder and grease hung in the stale air. There was no sound of air scrubbers here. Who needed clean air when the workers didn’t even breathe?

  The red spider dots terminated at the far-right corner of the room.

  A single desk, bathed in light from a three-sided surround, was set flush against the wall. An abbot lay slumped in front of it, one arm bent forward as if reaching out for something.

  Harlan closed the door and stepped closer to the abbot. It appeared someone had struck the V3 unit on the back of the head, causing a gash in the skull approximately fifty millimeters long and twenty wide. Purple coolant dripped from the opening, soaking the abbot’s gray and yellow engineer’s uniform.

  “I doubt it knew anything about it—the scream was just a programmed response.”

  — Even if it did know about the attack, would it care? Milo asked.

  “Let’s not get into a debate of whether abbots have consciousness.”

  — Then get on with your work. There’s a terminal there.

  Before Harlan reported the destroyed abbot to the maintenance division for recycling, he continued his search and located the diagnostic terminal. His AR layer showed multiple smears on the glossy surface. A human wearing gloves must have handled it recently. If an abbot had used it last, their prints, like miniature right-angle mazes, would have shown instead. In all his years, he’d never heard of an abbot breaking the law, let alone covering their prints like this.

  — You can use the terminal to connect to the spider.

  “I know, I’m not a rookie. You’d be a much greater help telling me things I don’t know. Isn’t that why I paid twenty favors to have you installed?”

  — It’s cute you think that’s all you paid.

  “What’s that mean?”

  — I thought you wanted me to tell you something you didn’t know?

  “Stop playing games or I’ll switch you off.”

  — Your sanity, Harlan. You paid with your sanity.

  “Get lost.” Harlan was tiring of Milo’s jibes. He wished he’d paid extra for a more professional model of peripheral instead of one programmed by some snarky code-ninja.

  Harlan stepped up to the desk, placed the semi-crushed spider on the worktop and activated the terminal. The machine booted up within a few seconds, and he checked the log files. Although there were instructions sent to the spider’s address, there was something else: a set of directives to the QCA.

  “This is not good,” Harlan said, looking back at the abbot, the picture becoming clear in his head. “Why would someone destroy an abbot?” he asked, mostly rhetorically.

  — To use their unprotected chip ID to gain access to the QCA.

  “Right. Many people have tried and failed—the encryption is too strong— but look at this.”

  He scanned the list of instructions from the terminal. One thing stood out that chilled him to the bone.

  — Someone’s written a virus that’s breached the QCA’s first layer of security, Milo said.

  “Yeah, and look what it’s done.”

  Harlan gestured across the terminal to show the virus’ source code, the program still fresh in the memory of the dead abbot—its backup power would be good for another few weeks.

  — Holy crap.

  “Holy crap indeed. The virus has taken over the controls of another abbot somewhere. Whoever’s behind this has managed to crack the autonomous sovereignty of abbots. This could reignite the war… and if the virus cracks the rest of the QCA security layers, it would give someone complete control over the entire population of abbots.”

  — A ten-million-strong robot army…

  Harlan downloaded the data he had found and removed the chip from the dead abbot’s head. He’d take it back to the office for further analysis. He turned to gaze around the room, wondering how Vallan was tied up in all this. Was it his job to upload the virus to the QCA via the now-dead abbot?

  It made sense. The spider was used to spy on Harlan so Vallan would know if he was being followed. So where was he? And why have something like a spider do the work? Vallan must have known it would have left tracks. He could have hacked into the Luna base’s security systems, set up a facial-recognition tracking program….

  “Why am I here?” he mumbled, stalking about the room, tapping a finger to his lips.

  — You’re here because of spider tracks and the scream from the abbot, dumbass.

  Harlan repeated that to himself a number of times, without the insult.

  Milo was on to something, but it couldn’t quite form into a coherent thought. Harlan stopped pacing, closed his eyes, and focused on those two facts, going backwards from his current location, trying to extrapolate meaning.

  The spider… the scream… Vallan’s target…

  And then it hit him.

  “It’s me,” Harlan said. “Damn it. I’m the target.”

  He rushed for the door, but it was already slamming shut. It locked into place with the loud clunk of the maglocks activating. He spun around, saw a shadow move across the table. His heart rate spiked, but his controller throttled it to eighty percent maximum.

  A controlled dose of adrenalin entered his bloodstream. His vision narrowed and his senses heightened. He swung around, trying to get a visual on his adversary.

  — Above you.

  Harlan looked up.

  Sprawled between beams like a spider himself, Santos Vallan peered down at Harlan through a semi-translucent face mask. The assassin was wearing a chameleon suit, helping him blend in. No wonder Harlan hadn’t registered
any living creatures in there; the suit would have blocked his scan.

  Thinking back, Harlan realized Vallan had probably been on the same transport ship.

  He had been led here all along. Harlan was always the target. The hunter now the hunted.

  In the microsecond it took for all this to process, Vallan pulled a palm-pistol from a holster and pointed it at Harlan’s head.

  Harlan’s upgraded reflex system kicked in, and he dived to his right as a near-silent ‘thwup’ sound fired close, the round penetrating the steel wall with a punctuated clang.

  Another shot, this time closer, grazed the edge of Harlan’s boot.

  He scrambled beneath the workbenches and pulled a Taser from his biker jacket’s inner pocket. From under the table, Harlan saw the shadows shift quickly.

  Vallan had fallen to the floor in almost complete silence.

  Before Harlan could get a visual, the lights went out.

  And then came the mocking laughter.

  “Dearest Harlan,” Vallan said, his voice disguised and scattered by the chameleon suit to prevent location, “looks like you got yourself into quite the situation.”

  “I’ve alerted security,” Harlan said, willing his contacts to activate their dark-vision feature—a feature he’d been meaning to get fixed. Sometimes the contacts worked, sometimes they didn’t, and this was not the time he wanted them to fail.

  — Keep him talking. Buy some time for me to sort your dark vision.

  “Don’t lie to me, Harlan. I thought we had a better relationship than that.”

  “The only relationship we have is good guy to bad guy.”

  “And which is which, I wonder?”

  Harlan’s enhanced hearing wasn’t helping locate Vallan via his voice, but there was a barely audible sound of textile on steel—Vallan’s feet moving deftly over the floor—which gave Harlan the sense that Vallan was now on the right-hand side of the room, by the dead abbot.

  “You really have to ask?” Harlan said, using his voice as a cover to spin around and face the right direction.

  “You have a greater body count than I. Though only by one.”