Leviathan (Asher in Ordered Space Book 2) Read online

  “Copy that,” said Asher, and sprinted for the tunnel opening, which was perhaps five hundred meters ahead. It was a little overwhelming to be backed up by a destroyer from orbit. He had trained in combined arms work like this, but he had never had to use that kind of firepower in the field. In fact, when he had detailed Chuck to watch the scientists and made his run for the mine, it hadn’t really occurred to him to ask Fleet to back him up. Now that they were, it made the whole matter of life and death seem like a game, to have so much power on call just to protect him.

  Still, the operative from Fire-and-Forget had said that some of the non-corps were using scramblers in order to hide their EM signatures and make it harder for the sensors on vessels in orbit to spot them. Asher should be able to see them at ground level, as most scramblers created a shimmer or what appeared to be a patch of haze, but he did have to be ready for another assault.

  He realized that his subnet implant was working, or he wouldn’t have been able to communicate with the destroyer. He tried to ping Leah Minter again, but got nothing but feedback. It must be her implant that was blocked or scrambled somehow.

  ***

  He reached the tunnel without incident and advanced into it briskly. He slung his pulse rifle over his shoulder and unholstered his semi-auto. The handgun was less destructive and far more accurate, making it a better weapon for use in close quarters, which the tunnel definitely was. Its roof was perhaps three meters above his head, and the walls were no more than ten meters apart. He could see no features on those walls, which were glassine and burnished enough to reflect his face. He had the mask and hood of his skinsuit up, and the distorted image that stared back at him looked more like some alien beast than the face he saw in the mirror every day.

  Asher followed the tunnel for about a hundred meters before he saw a slight emanation of light from around a corner. The white glow of a mercury lamp spilled across the passage and reflected eerily back from the glassy tunnel walls. Asher approached with caution, pausing just before he reached the corner. With a smooth movement, he brought his gun up and swung himself around the bend, ready to draw down on any bandit that might have reached the lab ahead of him. Rather than a bandit, though, he saw two startled Cythrans and Minter, who was so absorbed in the study of a black box at the other end of the lab space she didn't even notice his arrival.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The lab was a large room, lit only by three bulbs pasted to two of the walls using a quick-dry plasteel net. Against the wall with only one bulb on it, to Asher’s left as he stood in the doorway, was an array of shelves with various dark bulky objects—the nature of which he couldn’t make out—arrayed upon them. The far wall, across the room from where he stood, held two of the bulbs. In the bright space where the two arcs of light met was a pedestal which held a black cube that coruscated with blue lights. Minter was examining this device, which probably measured about one meter one each side, with great attention. Asher assumed it was the alien computer.

  The remainder of the room, the darkest part farthest from the light sources, was filled by what appeared to be a large pen or corral. It had been made by building a meter-high concrete divider from wall to wall across the whole space. In the center of the dividing wall was a slatted metal gate. Through the slats, Asher could see movement in the space beyond, but he couldn’t see what lurked there.

  “What are you doing, Asher?” asked Qwadaleemia. She and Faraneeta were the two Cythrans who had accompanied Minter to the lab.

  Minter, turning, looked at him with mild surprise. “Asher? Why didn’t you call?”

  “Your subnet implants aren’t working. None of you are in commo with anyone! Didn’t you realize?”

  Minter looked up at the ceiling for a moment, probably accessing her net to attempt communication. “You’re right, it doesn’t work.” She looked to the Cythrans.

  They gave a noncommittal wave of their tendrils that Asher knew to interpret as a shrug. “We have no subnet implants anymore,” said Faraneeta. “We removed out neural nets and substitute simpler translation devices months ago.”

  Asher tried to call Fire-and-Forget, but received only the same feedback he had heard when attempting to contact Minter earlier. Perhaps it was something in the lab or the tunnel that was interfering with the subnet signal. His neural net was still working, thankfully, as his translators were still rendering the Cythrans’ odd audiovisual language for him. “Well shit,” he said. “Now none of us can call out.”

  “So?” asked Minter. “Maybe there’s interference, makes no difference. I don’t need the subnet implant for the time being.” She paused. “I suppose it will be helpful to access Dalian’s AI, though. Perhaps we’ll have to run a hard line.”

  Asher stared at her like she had gone mad. “Didn’t you hear the hardbeam? Don’t you realize we’re under attack?”

  The Cythrans looked alarmed, but Minter still seemed nonplussed. “We’ve been attacked? By whom?”

  “Damn it!” Asher yelled. “There’s a non-corp assault force out there right now trying to break in here and take this thing. Fleet is doing what it can, but we need to get you out of here and back to Archon settlement. In fact, if it was up to me I’d put the whole lot of you back on Dalian right now. This is no place for civilians anymore.”

  “I can’t leave,” said Minter, simply. “The computer is here.”

  Asher looked at the alien box again. Blue light flashed along its smooth sides. He could see no interface system and no obvious power source. The thing didn’t look like any computer he had ever seen. “Can’t we just move it? It’s not plugged in or anything.”

  She gave him a look of scorn. “No, we can’t just move it. We don’t know anything about it. You say it’s not plugged in, so tell me, how is it powered? Where is its plug?”

  “Besides,” said Faraneeta, “it’s not just the computer. We also have to protect the Shamblers.” She gestured in the direction of the low wall that divided the room. “We have to understand them, just as much as this device.”

  Asher walked over to the corral and looked over the wall. Inside was what appeared to be a scatter of rocks, ranging from fist-sized cobbles to boulders a meter or so in diameter. All were smooth, as though they had been rounded in a river. A small cobble vibrated, catching Asher’s eye. As he watched, the cobble began to glide across the floor. He noticed then that several of the rocks were moving, jerkily wandering around and climbing over one another. Some of these motile rocks were gathered at the slatted metal gate in the middle of the wall, as though they were waiting for someone to open it for them so they could go out into the rest of the lab.

  “Are they silicon, like they look?”

  “No,” said Qwadaleemia, “the rock-like exterior is just a carapace. They are organic. They are clearly intelligent, but it is not clear if they have crossed the threshold to true sentience. They are also part of the puzzle of our origins. Perhaps we Cythrans were made here, in this very lab.”

  “Maybe you will find answers here,” he said, “but for now I need to get you and Minter to safety. There may be bandits on the way here as we speak.”

  It was Minter who replied. “Then you’ll just have to stop them. That’s your job after all, isn’t it? I’m not leaving the computer.”

  Asher sighed. He thought about trying to force Minter back to the settlement, but he had to admit that she did have a point. The computer was potentially a thing of immense value, and if the Shamblers were sentient, then they deserved some measure of protection from the non-corps, just as he had decided to protect the Cythrans from Hokozana the year before. He turned back toward the entry tunnel. “Are the Shamblers dangerous?” he asked.

  “What?” asked Faraneeta.

  “Are they dangerous? Do they hurt people who go in there with them?”

  “No. They seem quite harmless.”

  “Then you—all of you—get behind that wall.” He turned to Minter and held out his semi-auto. “Do you remember your indu
ction training? Can you still use one of these?”

  She nodded nervously, and he gave her the weapon. When she hesitated he gave her a push toward the corral. “In there, all three of you.”

  “And you, Asher?” asked Qwadaleemia.

  He ported his pulse rifle and smiled. “I’m going to go do my job.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Back at the mouth of the tunnel, Asher was able to re-establish communication with Fire-and-Forget. Whatever was interfering with the subnet implants appeared to be confined to the laboratory. Presumably, the interference was caused by either the computer or the Shamblers. Or perhaps it was the technetium and other radioactive materials present in the rock.

  “This is Fire-and-Forget.” The same Fleet operative as had contacted him before responded to his hail.

  “Am I alone down here?” Asher asked. “Have you seen any other bandits creeping around?”

  “We haven’t seen anything in your vicinity, but be advised that some of the non-corps are wearing scramblers.”

  “Yeah,” said Asher, “you mentioned that. Minter and the two Cythrans are secure. Sitrep on Chuck and the science team?”

  “Archon settlement is secure. Memnon is dispatching a shuttle with additional Security operatives to establish a harder perimeter. Suggest you get yourself, Op Minter,and the Cythrans over there on the double.”

  “No can do.” Asher explained the problem with the computer and the Shamblers. While protecting Archon and the Hokozana team there was important, securing the computer and the aliens should be viewed as critical, in his opinion. Unfortunately, Meridian had a prior claim to them and simply sending a Security team down to seize the lab could be viewed as a violation of contract.

  “Wait one, Op Asher,” said the Fleet man.

  As he waited, Asher scanned the mine and the rim of the pit, looking for the tell-tale shimmer that might indicate the location of a scrambled non-corp trying to sneak up on him. He didn’t see anything, but there were plenty of outcrops and boulders casting shadows that might hide a whole squad of bandits. “Hey Chuck,” he said into his subnet implant.

  “Asher?” Chuck replied. “What’s you situation? Are you secure?”

  “I’m at the mouth of the tunnel leading to the lab. Problem is, there may be scrambled bandits out there sneaking up on me. If they get the drop on me, there’s nothing I can do.”

  There was no reply for a moment. Finally, Chuck asked, “Want me to come to your twenty?”

  “Negative. Protect the team. If the Coin-Ops can spare a squad, though…” The mercs, unlike a Hokozana Security team, could move to the lab and set up a hardpoint without creating an intercorp incident.

  “I talked to Sergeant Gary,” said Chuck, after a pause. “He swears that there’s no way the non-corps can get past Archon and into the mine. You should be good.”

  “Tell that to the three bandits Fire-and-Forget iced ten minutes ago. Whatever cordon Gary thinks he’s got around this pit, he’s wrong.”

  The line went dead for a moment, presumably while Chuck conferred with Sergeant Gary. Finally, she said, “OK Asher. May Roca and three Coin-Ops are on their way to you. Hold your position, if you can.”

  Fire-and-Forget called back to tell him they’d monitored his transmissions and understood assistance was on its way. Did he still need a Security team? Asher, who understood the complications behind such a move, told them to ready the team and get it in the shuttle, but not to send it down unless he gave the OK.

  ***

  Asher noticed the shimmer on the rim of the mine just in time to duck back into the tunnel. A beam lanced through the spot where he had been standing, sending up a cloud of dust where it disintegrated the rock. He leaned out and fired several pulses in the general direction the beam had come from. At the same time, a hardbeam from Fire-and-Forget struck nearby and tracked back and forth over the area. Asher had no idea if they had hit the bandit who had taken the potshot at him, but he was pretty sure that the hardbeam would at least give the sniper pause. The destroyer in orbit might not be able to spot the scrambled non-corps, but it could zero in almost instantly on the source of any radiation, like a beamer or pulse gun.

  Automatic weapons fire erupted from the rim. A few bullets kicked up shards of rock on the ramp in front of the tunnel. The bandits had made the smart choice; they were going with projectile weaponry. Conventional bullets were much harder to track from orbit. The hardbeam lanced down again, but it struck some distance from the area the hostile fire was coming from.

  “Asher,” Chuck came in over the subnet, “Call off F-and-F. I tried, but they want an all clear from you as the op on the ground. May Roca says she’s ready to take the non-corps out.”

  Asher relayed the message to the destroyer. Seconds after he passed word back to Chuck, a firefight broke out near an outcrop on the rim. He couldn’t see what was happening, but he heard the pops as shots were exchanged. The battle lasted no more than thirty seconds or so.

  “You’ve got an all clear, Asher.” Said Chuck. “May Roca would like your help securing the pit and finding the bandits’ entry point.”

  “Copy that.” Asher set out back up the ramp to meet up with the Coin-Op mercs.

  ***

  At the rim of the open pit, he found May Roca and another Coin-Op, a man whom he hadn’t seen before. May Roca was treating a gash on the man’s shoulder with a foam bandage. “Asher,” she said, “You brought out some of the locals, I see.”

  “You OK?” asked Asher.

  “Me? No prob. Keller here’s got a new scar. Mackie didn’t make it.” She gestured toward a shadow at the base of a nearby outcrop. Another Coin-Op man was lying there, obviously dead.

  “I’m sorry,” said Asher.

  May Roca just grunted.

  Asher spotted a shimmer in a tuft of vegetation beyond the outcrop. He walked over to it, and felt around with his foot until he’d found the bandit’s body in the haze created by the scrambler. It was strange knowing there was a dead person there but not being able to see the corpse. There were four other shimmers scattered behind boulders in a small clearing. May Roca and her companions had made a good accounting of themselves.

  As Asher stood there, one of the scramblers flashed a few times then died, exposing the body of a non-corp. Asher gazed at it. It was a middle-aged woman, small and tough-looking like May Roca. Maybe this was another of the children of the pioneers of Lutetia. He looked back up at where May Roca sat with Keller and thought again that corps were pretty good at screwing up places where people just wanted to be left alone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In the aftermath of the bandit attack, Asher pressed Qwadaleemia and her creche-mates to take steps to protect the alien computer and the Shamblers. “That was just the beginning. The non-corps will come again soon, then the mercs, and maybe even DiJeRiCo or some other megacorp that thinks it can get away with it.” He urged her to come to some kind of agreement with Hokozana. “At the very least, make a deal that will keep orbit in our hands. We would never have won the last fight without the destroyers. If they have to bug out because a larger fleet arrives in-system, we might as well just surrender to the next gang that makes the effort.”

  Qwadaleemia conferred with her creche, and in the end they contacted Dalian with terms. “We will agree to become a subcontractor for a limited term,” she said. “Nothing more. We need the freedom to pursue our own path.”

  “Against the Ferethers?” Asked Asher.

  “If that is what we choose.”

  Asher didn’t say so, but he thought that the Cythrans would soon find that their interests and Hokozana’s aligned more than Qwadaleemia knew. Intel and Exobio had not forgotten about the Ferether threat. There were many powerful people in Hokozana who would be more than happy to help the Cythrans pursue whatever interests they liked, so long as it led them closer to understanding and defending against—or defeating—the Ferether Entity.

  With the avowed protection of Hokozana, a
nd the arrival of a Security team from Memnon, the non-corps did not attack Archon again.

  ***

  With the new security in place to guard the science team, Asher and Chuck were reassigned to protect the Cythrans. Qwadaleemia and her people also kept the Coin-Ops on retainer as a bodyguard force, allowing the newly-arrived Hokozana operatives to watch over the settlement. Because Faraneeta, Garueeria, and Qwadaleemia were all heavily involved in the study of the alien computer, this meant that Asher, Chuck, Sergeant Gary, May Roca, and three other mercs—including the recuperated Keller—were all barracked in the tunnel that led to the underground lab.

  They had figured out that it was the computer that somehow interfered with subnet signals, although they couldn’t yet counteract the effect. As a work-around, they had placed a relay at the mouth of the tunnel and hardwired in a mic system that would let anyone in the lab or tunnel area quick access to the subnet, and, through it, to the ships in orbit and the ops in Archon settlement.

  They spent the next week there, in relative quiet, while the science team and the Cythrans came and went in their study of the Shamblers and the device in the lab. With little to do, Asher found himself speaking frequently to May Roca, learning about the history of Lutetia.

  “You see,” she told him, “It’s like this. There was eight families—big families, you know, cousins, in-laws, and all—here in the beginning, folks from Mekong and Peshawar in the Sidereus system, mostly. Those used to be planets like Lutetia, where a prospector could make the living he chose. Corps moved into Sidereus in my Grand-Da’s day, though. Now Mekong’s a KaneInc planet and Peshawar got bought by En-Bae.” These were two of the larger mining corps, not as powerful as the megacorps, but large enough to be considered Class IIIs, despite their concentration on a single industry.