In his dream he was being chased by a long, winding festival dragon whose head was the four-armed torso of an Ezgara commando, its four hands tipped with serrated claws, its featureless helmet splitting open to show rows of needle-like teeth, gleaming, snapping…
He was jolted in his couch, waking once more to a sickly mouth and a nasty headache.
‘Back among the living, KC? – good. We’re docking with my associates’ mothership so it won’t be long before you meet the leaders of the revolution!’
Corazon Talavera, his beautiful and deadly captor, sat in the pilot couch, monitoring displays, making a few adjustments, and glancing at him occasionally. The cockpit’s viewport was clear, revealing a strange vista, a dull yellow sun the size of a coin, its amber radiance casting a daylight crescent over a grey-brown planet which filled about a quarter of the frame. At first sight, it seemed that clouds of asteroids hung in spreading orbits about the nameless world… until a dark, jagged object tumbled past not far off, catching the sunlight on torn metal edges, a faring, a section of hull. Glittering and dwindling, it fell away into the planet’s gravitic embrace.
‘Wreckage,’ said Cora, who had been watching him. ‘Debris, the smashed remains of ships, combat and civilian, big and small, armed and helpless. Welcome to the Shafis System.’
Kao Chih frowned. ‘You say that as if you expect me to know what it means, but I do not.’
She arched her eyebrows. ‘KC, where have you been? I’m not a newsleech but even I’ve picked up a few details about Shafis here and there. Okay, here’s the short version – which is all I can be bothered with. Shafis is a system on the edge of the Yamanon Domain, where it shades off into the Huvuun Deepzone, and so far Coalition forces have fought three battles here. First time it was with retreating remnants of the Dol-Das fleets, then it was against an armed reconnaisance group from some Aranja Tesh civ, probably Metraj, trying to rescue survivors from that dustbowl of a planet. Third time, which was just a couple of weeks ago, it was a bunch of idiot Sageist zealots putting together a fleet to attack Coalition positions, using the high-orbit shell here as a staging post while trying to recruit from the scrabblers down on the surface. Each time, the Hegemony – and its loyal Earthsphere sidekick – stormed in with their ships and destroyed any vessel which offered resistance. And “offering resistance” was interpreted pretty loosely, I hear, resulting in these picturesque clouds of wreckage you see today. Along with a few more additions to the survivors down on the planet.’
‘So why are your employers stationed here?’ Kao Chih said. ‘Are they scavengers as well as revolutionaries?’
‘Benefactors, KC, rescuers. Since that third battle, the one with the holy armada, was fairly recent, it is possible that there may be survivors trapped on some of the hulks drifting out there, which naturally interests my employers. Who are also interested in similar individuals down the gravity well, but orbital searches come first.’
‘Recruits,’ said Kao Chih.
‘Exactly. You’re catching on.’ A clunking sound came through the hull and a rasping voice spoke over the ship-to-ship in a language that seemed to defy the linguistic enabler. Cora replied in kind and fingered several controls, putting most of the pilot controls on standby. ‘Time to meet your new masters.’
Kao Chih’s bonds were rearranged and lengthened, then, at gunpoint, he helped her wrap Drazuma-Ha* in a sheet and together they carried the mech out through the airlock and into a much larger one made of some dark, flexible material which had formed an airtight constriction around the Castellan’s airlock flanges. Hatch doors closed behind and opened ahead and Cora gestured with her skinny gun to continue. His ankles and wrists were now bound with two-foot-long secure straps which made movement a chore, but he managed to back out of the raised hatch edge, carrying his end of Drazuma-Ha*. Then he turned and saw that they were in a large, well-lit hold with equipment racks, luggage nets, upper-wall walkways, through-floor risers and overhead cargo lifts. There was also a welcoming committee, a tall reptiloid Kiskashin and a Gomedran garbed in grey overalls and carrying an odd figure-of-eight device.
At Cora’s direction he helped carry the quiescent mech over to the two sentients and stood it on its end.
‘Congratulations, Talavera,’ said the Kiskashin in deep-throated 4Peljan. ‘A high-grade human and a functioning Strigida-9 drone, just as you described. Truly, you are my most prized procurer.’
So this is a revolutionary? Kao Chih thought.
The Kiskashin was nearly seven feet high, and beneath a sleeveless, three-quarter-length bluefibre coat wore what looked liked pieces of combat armour on his arms and shoulders, grey polyhedral surfaces worn at the facet edges, scored and pitted. Kiskashin were upright bipeds with muscular, birdlike legs and wide-toed feet. It was only after Kao Chih looked more closely that he realised that the Kiskashin’s arms were artificial, having spotted the shoulder ball-joints and the fact that those arms had a longer reach than normal.
‘As always, it is an honour and a privilege to serve your cause, Castigator Vuzayel,’ Cora said, giving a slight bow.
‘And to serve your own, hah?’ the Kiskashin Vuzayel said. ‘The great cause of money!’ With the finger and thumb of one articulated, armoured, six-fingered hand he took a black velvety pouch from within his immaculate bluefibre coat. ‘Selling souls for profit, Talavera – few sins are as black as that in the eyes of the Great Sower. I sometimes think about inviting you to join the struggle, to lay down your sinful burdens and follow the path taken by those you have already brought into my care. But then I realise what a loss to the cause, the Writ of Sacred Revenge, that would be so I decide to forgo my duty, to further our greater ends.’
‘I am glad that I will continue to be of service to you, Castigator,’ Cora said unflinchingly. ‘And to be paid.’
The velvety black pouch hung there for a moment, then was whisked out of sight, stowed back inside the coat.
‘Later. First, I wish you to give our newest arrival the extended tour of our mighty vessel, the Sacrament, show him its most inspiring sights while the Strigida drone is being redacted.’ Vuzayel glanced at the waiting Gomedran. ‘Take it down to the examiners.’
The Gomedran bowed then stepped over to where Kao Chih still held Drazuma-Ha* upright, the sheet having been removed by Cora. The Gomedran motioned Kao Chih back, then slapped the figure-of-eight device onto the mech’s carapace, thumbed its control pad and a moment later was carrying the mech out of the hold on his shoulder as if it weighed next to nothing.
Kao Chih found himself being studied by Castigator Vuzayel, pale yellow Kiskashin eyes regarding him, occasionally tilting that narrow-snouted head to focus one of them on him.
‘I do not know what barbarous gods you Humans worship,’ he said. ‘But when you make your offering in the name of Sacred Revenge, know that you will be redeemed. You and the other devotees are the lucky ones – we, the leaders of the Chaurixa, must put off the joyous sacrifice until the Great Sower’s writ has been fulfilled, a sorrowful burden which we stoically shoulder. But before you begin your journey, Human, tell your name.’
‘I am called Kao Chih, sir,’ he said. ‘I am a freelance chandler, so if you have any unfilled contracts I would most happy to offer my services.’
Vuzayel laughed, a horrible grating sound.
‘If nothing else, you Humans are entertaining! Go in peace, Karrchi, the Great Sower awaits you.’
As the Kiskashin headed for one of the exits with a heavy tread, Cora pointed with her gun at a flight of stairs that led up to a grillwork walkway. Glumly, he followed her directions, his thoughts inevitably focusing on his mission to Darien and the erratic route that had brought him to this end, the reprogramming of his companion, Drazuma-Ha*, and his own conversion to these fanatics’ cause. No doubt he would face some form of brainwashing, perhaps a combination of drugs and sense-deprivation, or maybe even some kind of immersive procedure. Whichever it was he was determined to resist for as long as he could.
Cora prodded his shoulder with her gun then indicated a pair of heavy pressure doors just along the walkway. ‘Straight through and down the ramp.’
Ankles restricted by the secure straps, he shuffled forward and the doors slid aside to let them past.
‘I liked the way you tried to take my place,’ Cora said. ‘“Freelance chandler”, eh? Good title. I think I’ll adopt it now that you won’t have any use for it.’
‘I wouldn’t plan too far in advance, Ms Talavera,’ he said, trying to sound as if he were in good spirits. ‘Your master hasn’t paid you yet. But then you didn’t mention our little Ezgara problem – I wonder why.’
Cora’s laughter was light and edged with malice. ‘Keep flapping that mouth and I’ll have one of the aspirants nerve-block it.’
Kao Chih shrugged and continued down the ramp, which turned leftward twice. The Chaurixa mothership’s interior décor was in simple yellows and greens with notices and signs in dark red, often hurriedly stencilled to the walls. From a couple of location guides he discovered that the ship had a linear module configuration, four large hull sections built on a central axis, the drives and engineering at the stern, the bridge and quarters in the prow segment, while the two midsections were dotted with a number of arcane-looking symbols utterly mysterious to him. He had figured out that they had docked at the third hull module from the prow and were heading forward to the second. Cora steered him round a couple of corners and into the ship’s spinal corridor, up steps and through the connecting passage, and down more steps. She then had him turn left and follow the grav-plating track up the portside curve of the hull past a series of opaque doors. Each door had a grey panel bearing one of the symbols he had seen on the wall guides.
‘I know what’s going through your head, KC,’ Cora said behind him. ‘You think you’ll have to endure beatings and torture and drugs and crazy mind-scrambling virtsensoria… well, no, these people don’t work that way. These people are professionals with pressing deadlines and precision needs, so they’re not going to waste time trying to beat their point of view into you.’
She stopped him in front of one of the doors and the grey panel melted into transparency. Inside was a white surgical theatre where two masked and gowned Henkayans were working on a bulky form bound to a large cradle. The patient, or victim, was a Bargalil, its six-limbed body lying still and silent.
‘The Chaurixa medtechs have three ways of remoulding minds to fit the task. There’s viral programming, where they use tailored bugs to edit and rewrite an ordag’s brain, creating new compulsions, fears and desires, whole chunks of behaviour dedicated to carrying out the mission…’
‘What was that name you called him? Ordak…’
‘Ordag – short for “ordained agent”,’ she said. ‘Well, anyway, that seems like the worst way to me. You are yourself, you feel like yourself, but there’s all these memories and instincts making you do things you don’t understand. Creepy.’
She motioned him on to the next door. The panel went transparent, revealing a tall Sendrukan male, his eyes blindfolded as he lay strapped to a cushioned table while a hooded device on a segmented cable moved all around his head as if examining it from all directions. There was no one else in the room.
‘Another way is to just simply wipe away the mind, flatten all the characteristics, leaving aside the autonomic and certain learned reflexes. Then they embed a new persona sufficiently complex to carry out whatever task it’s needed to do.
‘But some tasks can be too involved and socially demanding for an embedded persona, so the Castigator’s clever underlings came up with kernelling – basically, parts of the cortex are scooped out and a paraorganic nanostructure is grown in its place, which serves as the residence for a partial, or sometimes a full, AI.’
‘Efficient,’ said Kao Chih, horrified but maintaining his composure. ‘In Chinese mythology there are many hells, some as elaborate as these rooms.’
She looked at him. ‘For example?’
‘There is the Hell of Disembowelment where hypocrites and tomb robbers have their bowels cut out. Or there is the Hell of Sawing where kidnappers and those who force good people to do bad things are sawn into pieces.’
‘You’re making that up.’
He shrugged. ‘Chinese history goes back a long, long way, so some things might indeed be made up. And some may not.’
She smiled and wagged a reproving finger. ‘You can’t spook me, KC. Besides, you haven’t seen the rest of our little circle of hell yet.’
The walkway led past another couple of milky opaque doors, curving over to the starboard side, where Cora had him stop before a set of double doors. Through the clear panels Kao Chih saw a white room with a few thin-legged chairs and another pair of doors. He also saw an octopoidal Makhori laid full-length on a wheeled trolley, its pale tentacles stretched out and still while its torso showed regular, slow breathing. Its large, open eyes stared blankly upwards.
‘It’s just been wiped,’ Cora said, giving him another prod. ‘This is the augmentation area – go on in.’
He pushed through with both hands and stopped to gaze down at the immobile Makhori.
‘Sometimes missions require a strength or speed beyond the abilities of ordinary organic creatures,’ she said. ‘So ordags are brought here for alterations, modifications, refurbs, whatever the mission calls for, occasionally the full, customised cyber-augmentation – heart, veins, muscle, blood and bone, from the roots of your hair to the nails on your toes. No sense left untouched.’
One of the inner doors opened and to Kao Chih’s surprise a Human emerged, a thin, old man in a brown robe, grey-haired and stooped. He saw Kao Chih and, peering, came over.
‘So they got another,’ he said in a creaky voice as he held out a wrinkly hand. ‘I’m Josh – what’s your name, son?’
‘I am Kao Chih, sir – I am honoured to meet you. How do you come to be here?’
‘Likewise.’ Josh indicated Cora, who was still holding her gun levelled at Kao Chih’s chest. ‘Came here courtesy of your friend’s one-way service.’
‘Did she put you to sleep as well, Josh?’
‘Three times – I was a cranky passenger.’
Cora rolled her eyes, just as the inner doors opened. A green-clad Henkayan entered, seized the trolley with all four stubby hands and wheeled the insensible Makhori away beyond the doors. A second, more imposing Henkayan appeared, garbed in pale green, ankle-length robes and wearing a yellow band around his throat. His wide, tapering head was crowned with dense purple hair coiffed into stiff, upward coils and his large, coarse features were grinning as he approached Josh.
‘Very good, superior one, but keep up practice of New Montana accent, become perfect. Go now to out-fitters, they are expecting you.’
‘My thanks, Compositor Henach. May the Great Sower’s will be served.’ So saying, the man called Josh straightened his posture and, ignoring Cora and Kao Chih, strode out of the main doors. The grinning Compositor Henach turned his attention to the newcomers.
‘Castigator Vuzayel has spoken to me,’ he told Cora. ‘This one is to be sent to one of the Tertiary Grace worlds in Metraj, to assassinate a Vikantan industrialist.’
Cora made an impressed sound. ‘So a partial augmenting, I’d guess.’
‘Yes, and then wipe and persona overlay, not unlike my most recent patient.’
‘What of the drone?’
‘Will be reprogrammed and fitted with anti-personnel systems and self-destruct.’
Cora nodded and turned to Kao Chih. ‘Well, this is it, KC – it’s been a rollercoaster ride but we got there in the end. So see you in another life – or another hell!’
She smiled and winked, just as the Henkayan touched something cold and metallic to his neck. Immediately, everything below his head went numb and like a puppet with severed strings he fell but was neatly caught. Bizarrely, he was still conscious and fully alert but without any control over his neck muscles so that his head lolled this way and that as Compositor Henach carried him from the room.
‘Your new body will be remarkable, Human – we do only remarkable things here and you will see it all.’
The Compositor placed him in some kind of cradling couch which had a row of folded surgical extensors along one edge, like the hooks and pincers of a grotesque creature, glittering and retracted. He only caught glimpses of it as the Henkayan fastened him in. Kao Chih wanted to cry out, even curse his captor, but the deadening effect encompassed his vocal chords.
‘So – augmentation of legs, arms, hands, chest, and perhaps spine also.’ Kao Chih could see the Henkayan lean over then heard a series of tiny clicks, and a hologram of a human body appeared overhead, an image stripped of skin and showing muscles, arteries, organs, the stark, pale orbs of his own eyes staring up, his toothy jaws gaping but unable to speak, an exhibition in red. A sense of helpless despair filled his mind.
‘Hmm, no dataweave, no cranial conduit, and no implants… except for molecular attachment in linguistic centre… hmm, still largely unblemished Human brain – most refreshing…’
Suddenly the couch gave a slight jolt and out of sight there was a metallic clinking, and the clatter of something falling to the floor. The Compositor cursed under his breath, put his grin back in place and looked at Kao Chih.
‘First, we cut open your legs, insert builder seeds and guide membrane,’ he said. ‘Quick, easy, you feel nothing, then…’
This time the entire room lurched and Henach was thrown sideways to fetch up against the wall. He let out a shriek of rage and dashed across the room towards something out of Kao Chih’s sight. Outside the surgery alarms were warbling in the corridors and a moment later he heard the Henkayan say, ‘This is Compositor Henach – what is happening?’
‘So sorry, Compositor, but the Strigida drone has broken free of its stasisweb and caused damage to the inner hull…’
‘I am working! – no excuses, recapture it!’
‘Yes, Compositor, at once. When we find it.’
‘What? How can you lose it?’
‘It found a way into the maintenance interstices, sir, and the security scuttlers aren’t reporting anything…’
The opencom voice was blotted out by a deafening crash in the room, the sight of flying fragments of what looked like deck tiles, and a terrified howl from the Compositor, swiftly cut off. For a second or two there were only the ticks and knocks of bits of debris falling to the floor and an odd, muffled, mumbling sound. Then the familiar dumb-bell shape of Drazuma-Ha* drifted into view.
‘Greetings, Gowchee – I see that you are about to undergo some physical modifications, which would certainly enhance your ability to defend yourself in the future. Would you like me to return later?’
Robbed of his voice, Kao Chih could only frown, glare and mouth various demands and imprecations in an attempt to get his meaning across.
‘Ah, I deduce that this would be unwelcome – very well.’
All of a sudden he was plunged back into the sensations of his entire body again, as if he had convulsively awoken from a nightmare, or into one. Shivering, itching, coughing, he scrambled out of the surgical cradle and saw that Drazuma-Ha* was restraining the Compositor with a forcefield extension wrapped around the Henkayan’s mouth and neck. Rage mottled his features and despite the forcefield gag he was still trying to shout and threaten, which accounted for the muted throaty muttering.
‘So, how did you…’ Kao Chih began, but was forced to break off by a coughing fit.
‘Obtain my freedom? Well, our hosts, who think very highly of themselves, reasoned that providing our female hijacker with the specifications of the Strigida design would ensure success. They failed to realise that over the course of several thousand years I might have introduced some modifications of my own, like improvements to my power grid as well as multiple redundancy in the vital systems. Thus I was able to reroute my core functions, disable the stasisweb and free myself.’
Swallowing painfully, Kao Chih looked down at the long gaping hole in the floor. ‘Well, it certainly worked. What shall we do now?’
‘Getting off this space-going torture chamber would be most preferable,’ Drazuma-Ha* said. ‘I managed to tap into the security web and sealed the intermodule access doors, but that will only last until they splice up a workaround.’
Kao Chih stared at the unrelentingly wrathful Compositor Henach. ‘Does this vessel have escape pods?’
‘Yes, a small number for each module, but if we departed in one it would be an easy matter to send a recovery vehicle to bring it back in.’
‘We don’t go,’ Kao Chih said. ‘He does.’
‘A diversion, very good, making sure that the pod’s comm device is nonfunctional. Then, I assume, we will head towards the docking ring and your ship.’
‘Exactly – if you can make it appear that you have me restrained with forcefields, we can play guard-and-prisoner.’
‘I have a better suggestion,’ Drazuma-Ha* said as a shimmering aura formed about it, lengthened, altered its outline, swirled with colours… and suddenly Kao Chih was looking at two Compositor Henachs, the real one glaring with undisguised hate at his impostor.
Kao Chih grinned. ‘The appearance is precise – can you sound like him?’
‘Of course, puny Earthling!’ said the mech in the Compositor’s voice. ‘My vocal simulacrum is unrivalled!’
‘Then let us carry out our plan…’
‘You may like to keep this with you,’ said Drazuma-Ha*, tossing a silvery object which Kao Chih caught. It was a flattened oval with two springy arms tipped with dimpled pads. ‘That is what our companion used on you – a nerve-blocker. It may be useful if we encounter difficulty.’
It was not far from the augmentation rooms to the low, narrow escape pod bay, and there were no guards to be seen. It seemed that when Drazuma-Ha* had sealed off the modules, locking all the surgery doors in the process, most of the guards were in the adjacent module searching for a missing drone.
Once the pod’s comm system was disabled, the real Compositor Henach was thrust inside, his bellows of rage muffled by the closed hatch. There was a manual release in a wall niche which Kao Chih took great pleasure in pulling. A heavy thump, a furious hiss, and the pod leaped away, small chassis nozzles jetting. Another alarm started sounding so they ducked back out to the walkway and quickly made for the access door leading to the next module. Disguised as the Compositor, the mech paused nearby to crack open a wall panel, uncover the datalinks and modify the intermodule access status. As the door opened and the guards rushed in, shouting, Kao Chih assumed a listless stance, a drooping head and a vacant expression.
‘Compositor Henach!’ said the guard sergeant, an angry Gomedran with saliva gleaming on its fangs. ‘You have left your…’
‘Do not delay me, cretin! – this ordag must be wiped, orders of Castigator Vuzayel!’
‘But sir, is this the Human recently arrived? Its machine has caused much disruption…’
‘Are you calling me a fool? Are you? This different Human – fugitives use escape pods, cretin!’
‘I see, I understand…’
‘Why are you waiting for them to escape?’
Wilting in the face of such towering rage, the Gomedran sergeant saluted and hurried off while Kao Chih and Drazuma-Ha* proceeded through to the next module. No one stopped them as they continued up the ramp to the gantry which led along the docking ring. There was a Gomedran guard who challenged them but Kao Chih’s speechless, shuffling act got him into the right place to pounce with the nerve-blocker.
This is a useful device, he thought as he pocketed it and stepped over the sleeping guard. Wish I’d had one before Cora invited herself on board.
Drazuma-Ha* used a field probe to bypass the docking ring security and open the hatch. Moments later they were back in the familiar, cramped, odorous surroundings of the Castellan’s cockpit.
‘Gowchee, I rigged a two-minute delay on the docking clamp release,’ said the mech, now returned to his usual, curved, featureless self. ‘I would advise strapping into your couch as I am readying the main thrusters for a fast burn…’
One of the transparent console screens gave a blink of static before showing the Chaurixa leader, the Kiskashin Vuzayel.
‘My friends, why such a hasty departure? – there is so much we have yet to discuss, and I would rather exchange words than weaponsfire…’
The Castellan lurched free of the docking ring. In the next moment acceleration slammed Kao Chih back into his couch and left him struggling to breathe against the sudden pressure. He had wanted to make an obscene gesture at Vuzayel’s image but Drazuma-Ha* cut the link.
‘Vile creature,’ Kao Chih said. ‘And a vile place, Drazuma-Ha*. How soon can we leave… oh, but have we any usable course data?’
‘I’m checking that now… interesting, they had already commenced merging several course data sets into the navigationals, purely as place-holder templates.’
‘So those course data are out of date?’ Kao Chih said, spirits sinking.
‘By about thirty-six to forty-eight hours.’
Kao Chih groaned. ‘We went through this trying to escape from Blacknest! Are we going to have to make another blind hyperjump out among the stars?’
‘It may come to that, Gowchee, assuming we can evade the small craft that are now gaining on us.’
The screen in front of Kao Chih flashed to a rearward view, showing two bright objects following – the perspective jumped closer to one of them, revealing a tapered wedge shape with a large impeller drive and two gimbal-mounted work arms, one tipped with grasping claws, the other with a drill head.
‘Engine-modified scavengers,’ Kao Chih said. ‘But the Castellan should be able to leave them behind.’
‘That would be true if we were not heading into a debris field.’
Kao Chih looked up at the viewport just as Drazuma-Ha* banked the ship to dodge a house-sized piece of wreckage sprouting twisted beams and buckled sections of deck and bulkhead. Beyond, the widening, bright crescent of the planet was speckled by an immense cloud of wreckage. He knew they would have to cut their velocity to avoid the possibility of a crippling collision, whereas the scavenger boats could use their superior manoeuvring to get in close. Not for the first time, he wished the Castellan had some decent firepower.
‘Could we ram them?’ he said. ‘Or even use our main thrusters as a weapon?… of some sort…’
‘Creative suggestions, Gowchee,’ said the mech. ‘If a little fanciful. On the other hand, we could accelerate along a path I have mapped through the sparsest areas and thereby evade our pursuers.’
Suddenly optimistic, Kao Chih gestured at the view-port.
‘Forward then, honourable Drazuma-Ha*!’
The mech blipped the thrusters, an intermittent, muffled drone.
‘We need to bypass this approaching dense cluster of debris, then alter our attitude…’
Ahead, he could see a portion of the starry darkness where unstarlike points and splinters of reflected sunlight hung like a huge shoal of menace off their starboard. As the Castellan’s attitude changed, the glittering, dark shoal shifted to fill the viewport but then slid away to starboard again as the ship, drifting sideways, came into alignment with Drazuma-Ha*’s intended trajectory. Another long moment during which a glance at the stern monitor showed the pursuers dodging around ragged pieces of wreckage, swooping ever nearer. Then the thrusters cut in again and Kao Chih was shoved back into his couch as the Castellan surged forward. He was about to let out a whoop of delight when the ship jolted, as if struck from beneath.
‘What…’
‘Compensating for course deviation,’ said the mech. Then a familiar voice came over the comm system.
‘Well, hi there, KC. Thought I’d come along for the ride…’
Drazuma-Ha* switched the external monitor to the ship’s underside, and there was another of the boosted scavenger boats, induction grapples anchoring it to the hull while one of the gimballed arms reached out with heavy claws to a nearby housing.
‘You’ve really disappointed me, KC, as well as putting me in bad odour with my masters – bring you back, I was told, or don’t come back… oh, sorry, was that something important?’
A high-pitched beeping sounded and red symbols flickered on the console. On the external monitor those extended claws were holding a torn-off piece of housing.
‘Secondary fuel port,’ said Drazuma-Ha*. ‘I’ve isolated it. She is coming through on the proximal helmet channel, Gowchee – shall I shut it off?’
Kao Chih shook his head, reached out and fingered the channel reply.
‘Cora, instead of attacking us, why not come with us?’
‘Appreciate the offer, KC, but I have to keep up a certain repute for the benefit of those who make use of my services – no repute, no job offers, y’see…’
Kao Chih was looking out the viewport as he released the reply button.
‘Drazuma-Ha*, are there any wreckage pieces of substantial size along our flight path and can you adjust our course to pass close by?’
‘How close, Gowchee?’
‘Very close. And can you position us for a 180-degree roll on approach?’
‘Yes. Tracking one now – ninety seconds till flyby from… now.’
‘You understand my intention, Drazuma-Ha*?’
‘Indeed I do, Gowchee.’
It was the only course of action left to them, and they had to take it because Cora was determined to take them back or kill them trying. Because Kao Chih was done with being a captive or a commodity or some instrument to be used and discarded. Because he had a mission, because his family and friends and everyone back at Human Sept were relying on him.
The dull brown face of the nameless world was looming ahead, through all the strewn clouds of orbiting debris. Shafis System was a graveyard and was about to add to its burden.
A muffled whine started coming up from below – like those pursuit droids back at Blacknest, Cora was trying to drill through the hull.
‘Thirty seconds till flyby,’ said the mech. ‘Fifteen till bank manoeuvre.’
Grim-faced, Kao Chih thumbed the comm reply.
‘Cora,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry…’
In the viewport the brown planet began to turn. A dark, gleaming mass swung round as it swept nearer and impact alerts began to sound.
‘Well, KC, you’ll be the one who’s gonna be… you shit, KC, you sh—!’
Her voice went out in a burst of static at the same time as a metallic crunch reverberated through the ship. When he looked at the external monitor the scavenger was gone, apart from a twisted chunk of the drill mounting. There were also numerous scores and gouges in the hull plating, but nothing serious was triggering warnings on the main console.
‘A well thought-out tactic, Gowchee,’ said Drazuma-Ha*.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And cold-blooded. Apart from one of the Chaurixa victims, she was the only Human I’d met since leaving the Roug system.’
‘She rejected your offer, Gowchee – there was no other option open to us. But I am tracking her craft’s progress and from its behaviour I surmise that she may have survived the collision…’
He perked up at this. ‘What behaviour?’
‘The scavenger craft is falling in a steep curve towards the planet and the firing of positional thrusters seems to have stabilised its… ah, something has ejected but it too is heading towards the planet’s surface, although with a far shallower trajectory.’
Kao Chih sat back, feeling oddly relieved.
‘You look pleased, Gowchee, despite her attempts to enslave or kill us. It is possible after all that the Chaurixa may retrieve her and exact punishment on her anyway.’
He shrugged. ‘I am just glad that she survived, Drazuma-Ha*. I want to have no deaths on my conscience.’
‘A laudable if somewhat impractical goal, Gowchee.’
‘Why impractical?’
‘From observation and experience I can state that there were, are and always will be those that are eager and willing to use violence to get what they want – opposing them means responding with violence, leading inevitably to deaths.’
‘What of the use of cunning and non-violent methods of opposing them?’ Kao Chih said.
‘Either may well constitute an adequate defence, if the attackers are significantly less advanced than those being attacked. However, technological superiority is no guarantee of success.’
‘Which reminds me,’ Kao Chih said, gazing at the external monitor. ‘Are we still being chased and how long till we can attempt a hyperjump?’
‘Our pursuers have given up – it seems one of them sustained a disabling impact from a piece of wreckage and the other is towing it back to the Chaurixan mothership. As for a hyperspace jump – we will be exiting the densest area of debris in approximately two minutes, which will free up that portion of the ship’s system stack that has been occupied with tracking and guidance. Then you will have a choice to make.’
Kao Chih sighed. ‘Will this be a choice between a risky option and a deeply hazardous one?’
‘Well summarised, Gowchee. This star system lies near the edge of the Huvuun Deepzone and your destination, the world called Darien, is somewhere within that hazy region.’
Drazuma-Ha* had called up a representation of the immediate stellar region. The Shafis System was a bright pinpoint where a pale green wedge – the Yamanon Domain – met the amorphous, sepia opacity of the Huvuun. ‘The navigational matrix contains six course templates, but the only one that’s of any use to us terminates at Yonok, a Brolturan world near the border with the Kahimbryk Avail.’ On the screen, a neon-red line joined Shafis to another bright point on the other side of a narrow grey territory which separated Yamanon space from the blue of the Brolturan Compact. The coreward boundaries of all three adjoined the Huvuun Deepzone.
‘Give me the deeply hazardous option first,’ he said.
‘That is where we tell the navigationals to guess where the local hyperspace Tier 1 beacons are, then guess what our iso-orientation should be as we make the jump to Yonok.’
Kao Chih shivered. It sounded a lot like their escape from Blacknest, and they had been very lucky to get to Tagreli Openport rather than wind up in the middle of nowhere, or even an unfriendly somewhere. It was surely too much to rely on that kind of luck again.
‘And the merely risky option?’
‘The navigationals estimate the location of the nearest Tier 1 beacon which, according to the course template notes, is coterminous with Kahimbryk space, plus or minus 5 per cent. When we reach that beacon we drop out of hyperspace and head for the nearest commercial centre to see if we can obtain course data for this Darien.’
‘Course errors?’ Kao Chih murmured.
‘Exactly so, which is why I favour the second option – a shorter hyperspace jump would mean less time for errors to magnify. Besides, if we were ever to reach Yonok safely, the Brolturans would not be inclined to treat us kindly.’
Kao Chih nodded. ‘Very well, the merely risky option it is.’
‘The computations should be ready in less than a minute,’ said the mech.
And when the moment came, he sat back in his couch, head pressed back against the padded neck support, hands gripping the arm rests, jaw clenched.
At least this time there’s no rampaging droids trying to tear the ship apart or beautiful kidnappers speeding us off to some surgical-nightmare-torture-ship, he thought as the force-waves mounted in the tesserae fields at the heart of the Castellan’s hyperdrive. But I’m sure something will be waiting for us round the next corner.