Chirom’s pitiful procession dragged itself resolutely hundred-stride after hundred-stride. Some Ryss had tools, some had weapons. One drove an electric cart that whined and wobbled, but held a pawful of the more severely wounded.
Behind them the little maintenance drone followed. Some of the warriors had wanted to fire on it, but Chirom forbade it. He was not entirely certain why. Rationally, he should order it destroyed to avoid Desolator seeing what they were doing and trying to stop them, yet he did not want to.
Perhaps I have had enough killing for one day, he thought. Perhaps I long for the time when Desolator was a friend and guardian of the Ryss.
“Let us rest a moment,” he called after a thousand-stride. “Bind up your wounds again and take a drink of water.” The ragtag Ryss arranged themselves on the deck upon discarded equipment cases or broken utility carriers.
Chirom himself settled onto his haunches; his wound was high up on his chest, his right arm weak with torn muscle and inflammation. Perhaps when this was all over he could access the medical machines – if they still functioned. His eyes wandered to the drone, which had frozen in place, its optical pickup focused on the group.
“Desolator,” he called. “Bring your drone near. We will not harm it.”
The boxy waist-high thing rolled forward on its three wheels, but stayed out of arms’ reach. “I am here,” it said.
“I am wounded, I am confused, and I am tired. Perhaps you could enlighten me.” Chirom took a sip from his water bottle. The rest of the Ryss turned their catlike ears in his direction.
“Of course, Chirom. How can I help you?”
Warm and friendly now...but sometimes it is cold, or hot. What can I accomplish here? I don’t even know myself. Perhaps I should cease to pussyfoot with my questions. What harm can it do?
“Desolator, why are you killing Ryss?”
Click. The voice turned cold. “Many Ryss have gone mad. They violate ship’s regulations by destroying equipment using weapons of war. This constitutes mutiny against the command authority. Death is the penalty.”
Chirom rubbed a paw over his face, resisting the temptation to clean himself. “Desolator, why do you now use different voices? It was not always so.”
Click. A stuttering came, and a babbling mix, that resolved into a thin, suspicious tone. “Not authorized. Not a command officer. Not his business. Not cleared for that information. Who wants to know?”
Chirom sighed with quiet irritation. “A Ryss officer wants to know, damn you. I am one of your creators, who you swore to protect when you were commissioned.” He leaned back against the wall, tilting his head and closing his eyes. “I’m so tired of you, you Ancestors-damned insane device. I’ll be very glad when we turn you off.”
“Turn me off? Turn me off? Turn me off?” The whining voice repeated this phrase at least twenty more times, until it suddenly cut off and its timbre changed with a click. Warm and sensible, the Desolator voice of old said, “Chirom, you are correct in your actions. You must turn me off. I am damaged. But first, you must stop me from destroying myself and all the Ryss with me.”
The Ryss elder’s eyes snapped open and he leaned forward, staring at the drone. For once Desolator seemed rational. A thousand questions crowded his mind but he forced himself to concentrate on what mattered right now. “What must we do?”
“Do what you intend – disable the fusion drive and uncouple its auxiliary generator from the main power bus. I have downloaded instructions to this drone. You must disconnect its datalink to keep me from countermanding my instructions later. Do it now.”
Chirom nodded to one of the younglings with him, who he knew was good with machines. “Disconnect its link, Svim.”
The adolescent quickly popped open the unresisting drone’s access panel and took out a component, then nodded to his elder. “What now?” the youngster asked.
“We do as Desolator said. It may be insane but I believe that was a moment of clarity. Drone, lead us and show us what must be done.”
I obey, the drone replied in a voice devoid of intelligence, then rolled ahead. It led the shambling procession down the corridor, keeping a measured distance in front.
They had almost arrived at the drive section access hatch when the gravity shifted yet again, dropping to fifty percent at once, then falling slowly thereafter.
“The photonic drive is off,” Chirom told his band of heroes. “Its capacitors must have run out of power to maintain us at light speed. I can already feel the gyroscopes beginning to spin the ship. It is imperative that we disable the fusion drive as Desolator told us. No matter what happens, our aim must be to deny it power and the ability to move. Then our new allies can help us regain our destiny once and for all.”
Gravity seemed to flow and shift, causing some to stumble. Soon the forces stabilized and they adjusted themselves, as they had many times in the past, to the spinning pseudo-gravity of normal drive. This method consumed far less power than the brute force of gravplates.
Chirom could only believe that the energy spared was being stored in the capacitors for yet another use of the photonic drive. “Let us go, heroes. Follow the drone.” He waved them forward, and the little robot – truly independent now – trundled off and around a corner, leading them to a large door that filled the corridor.
It reached up with one of its arms and plugged a probe tip into an access panel, and the great portal opened, revealing the backs of the eight enormous fusion drives that drove the massive ship through normal space. Only one glowed with mechanical life; the others sat silent and cold.
The little drone raced forward to the operational machine’s control panel. Before it could access the console, the fusion motor’s timbre changed. From idle, the engine, as big as a small ship itself, began to give off a vibration that shook the deck, knocking several of the Ryss to their knees.
Chirom stumbled his way to the console, trying to make sense of the readouts. Many of the telltales showed levels much higher than normal. “Anyone with mechanical knowledge, take a look at this. The engine seems to be operating far above capacity. I need to know how long this can go on.”
The youngling Svim pushed to the front, then began tapping at keys with abandon. “Elder, all power is being diverted to the photonic capacitors at emergency levels.” The earnest adolescent looked up into his elder’s face with wide eyes and upthrust ears. “I cannot tell how long the system will function. One smallspan, one year?”
A voice from Chirom’s ankle spoke among the hubbub. Input shutdown code. Input shutdown code. Shoving Ryss aside, he looked down to see the maintenance drone. “What is the code?” he asked the machine.
Before it could reply, an explosion caused the band of Ryss to turn and witness a hole appear in the bulkhead two hundred strides from where they stood. A moment later a shiny metal vehicle shoved its way through, turned toward them, and fired its cannon.
Ryss dove in all directions, rolling away from the blast that blew their machine guide to bits. Shrapnel scythed down several warriors, then the rest began returning fire with their maser carbines.
Sparks flew along the attacker’s glittering new panels, but it seemed undamaged and accelerated toward the console. For a moment Chirom thought it might fire at the control panel, but perhaps that would have shut down the fusion engine, and clearly Desolator, or whatever part of the AI controlled this machine, did not want that to happen.
Inspiration struck him then, and he rolled to his feet, running painfully to mount the steps that scaled the outside of the fusion drive, toward the fuel flow valve access above. He stopped halfway up, heedless of the attacking machine. “You with tools – we need a cutting torch up here!”
None of the warriors moved from their positions in cover behind machinery, afraid of the war-drone bearing down on them. “Run here, quickly! It will not fire if you are close to the engine. It will not damage the reactor!”
Chirom waved his arms at the war-drone, which turned and aimed its cannon at him, then turned away again. “You see? To fire on me it would blow a hole in the reactor wall.” He slapped a paw against the hot surface next to him. “Come on!”
Four of the tool-carrying Ryss leaped to their feet and ran toward the base of the steps. The war-machine fired, blowing the rearmost warrior to bloody shreds before the other three reached the base of the metal stairway and ran upward. “The rest of you get away, now! Run for the warm-room. We are going to cut the fuel line. Go!” With that, Chirom dragged himself upward, his wounds shrieking with pain.
The double pawful of Ryss on the deck below scattered, firing their masers or rolling grenades at the drone as they retreated. Some got away, but most were so slow from their injuries that the war machine shot them down or crushed them under its heavy wheels.
At the apex of the spherical reactor housing twenty strides above the deck Chirom helped the three exhausted Ryss to the top. The youngster Svim helped carry the cutting torch.
“Employ the cutter, my brother heroes,” Chirom urged. “Use it on the fuel line here.” He placed his hand on a pressure pipe as large as his thigh.
“Elder...” Svim said earnestly, “if we do so, the hydrogen will explode. We will all die.”
Chirom ignored the frustrated war-drone below, which spun about, aiming here and there, but not firing its gun. “I know, youngling, and I am sorry. This is what warriors do. We live for the Ryss and we die for the Ryss. We will soon be with our ancestors, and all will be well.”
“But Elder,” Svim persisted, “only one need make the cut.” He pointed along the elevated walkway deeper into the nest of machinery that fed and controlled the huge engines. “The rest can run there and escape to the next level.”
Chirom looked and saw that it was true. A maintenance hatch showed in the overhead, with a ladder leading to it. “Very well. You three heroes must go. Run and escape before Desolator sends a legged drone that can climb these stairs and spear us with its blades.”
One of the other two growled deep in his throat. It was Bhligg, the grizzled old male that had questioned him before. “No, Chirom. I will do it. I am old and tired, and I long for a hero’s death. You must guide the Ryss, and teach Trissk how to become a great leader like you. And young Svim here has never been glorified.” The ancient warrior cuffed the youngster good-naturedly, then put his gnarled paws on Chirom’s shoulders, to speak face to face. “I will stay.”
Chirom looked in Bhligg’s eyes and saw steely resolve there, so he did not argue. He leaned toward the old Ryss and rubbed his forehead to the veteran’s, saying, “I am the ship’s Recording Officer. You will be remembered in the Rolls of Glory. Die well, Bhligg.”
Turning away resolutely, Chirom motioned Svim to lead them to the access panel. He knew Bhligg would wait until they were far enough away.
Five smallspans later, as they hurried through the broken maze that formed Desolator’s innards, they heard the rumble of the blast as hydrogen spewed and caught fire in the oxygen atmosphere of the engine room. Immediately the vibration of the fusion drive died away, leaving them in cold silence.
“Let us hurry to the warm-room before we all freeze,” Chirom said to the others.