The Orbital Fortress Bandala, Hodierna Galaxy

2351

Sean Beck took one last look at his first mate, Ana-Zhi. Her leg had been torn up pretty badly by the arthrodes and she was now being tended to by the MedBed. He had barely been able to fight the security bots off and escape with Ana-Zhi on the sled.

“She’ll live,” Nanu said. The Urunth pilot looked away, an unspoken implication flashing briefly in her amber slitted eyes.

Three other crew members were in critical condition, and there was a good chance they wouldn’t pull through.

“I need to go back in,” Beck said.

“What? Captain, no.”

Beck rose and stalked to the door. “This all cannot have been in vain.”

“There’s no time,” Nanu said. “The Fountain closes in three hours.”

“That means I can take an hour to retrieve the Crystal.”

“Are you insane?”

“I know where it is, Nanu. We were close.”

“Yes, close to full extermination.”

“I’ll take Yates this time. Just the two of us. And the borral gun. We’ll travel light. No sled. In and out.”

“The Rhya will force us to leave. Even without you. You know that, don’t you?”

“It won’t come to that. I’ll be back.”

* * *

Beck found Yates in the launch bay, already suited up.

“You sure I can’t bring the slicer?” Yates asked.

“We’re not taking the sled. Just what we can carry.  And you’re carrying the borral.”

“You know I’m not really trained on it.”

“Not much to it,” Beck said. “Point and shoot.”

“Yeah, right.”

The B-0-RL/9 “borral” gun was a heavy multi-array blaster with a backpack energy module that had its own mini z-field. But even with the reduced mass, it was clunky to handle. On the plus side, however, the borral gun could cut any foe in half from a distance of a hundred meters.

Yates indicated the exosuit laid out on an equipment bench. “I got your suit working again. The gyriform controller was fried, but I swapped out the unit from Ana-Zhi’s.”

Beck nodded. “Good work.”

With Yates’ help he quickly donned the suit and ran the start-up diagnostics. “Controller’s fine, but it looks like the comm unit is stuck rebooting.”

“Yes, it’s been on the fritz. We’re going to have to use these.” Yates handed over an old near-band wrist comm. “I already paired them.”

“Where’d you dig this up?” Beck said as he fastened the comm unit to his forearm.

“You’d be surprised what Eerin keeps around.”

Beck helped Yates with the borral gun’s energy module, and they synched a timer on their Auras.

“You ready?” Beck asked.

“Hell yes!”

And then they entered Bandala.

* * *

They hurried through the cavernous landing deck filled with cranes, energy stations, and mech depots—all unused for 500 years, at least.

“Airlock hasn’t reset,” Yates said as they approached the plated archway. He worked the controls, and the door opened with a faint whoosh.

“We’re almost in,” Beck said over the comm. But there was no response.

“She can’t hear you,” Yates said.

“What?”

“Near-band. Remember? I’ll open a relay from my suit. Hang on a sec.”

Beck wasn’t crazy about not having a direct open line back to the ship, and it certainly was counter to company protocol. But, then again, it was his company, and he basically set the protocol.

A moment later, Nanu’s voice sounded over the comm. “Captain?”

That was better. “Yes, we’re almost in.”

“We are in,” Yates said, motioning to the now-open inner doors to the entry hall proper.

“You have fifty-six minutes left,” Nanu said. “I suggest you don’t spend it chatting with me. Sir.”

“Duly noted,” Beck said. “We’ll check in again once we’ve reached the vault.”

“I’d wish you good luck,” Nanu said. “But you know we don’t believe in that.”

Beck smiled to himself. Urunths.

They raced through the entrance hall, with its odd wall of murals, through to the cargo depot, and then entered a human-sized tunnel—or Yueldian-sized, to be exact. There Beck paused for a moment to get his bearings.

“We don’t want to go straight,” Yates said. “That would lead right into the hot zone.”

“I know.” Beck’s eyes roamed along the walls and ceiling of the access tunnel. He was looking for a particular hatch—one that the drone had located right before its untimely demise. But the walls and ceiling seemed unmarked by any penetrations. They were plated with large panels—which seemed like some sort of shielding—and had ribbed vaulting every four meters. But it all looked solid.

“I don’t see anything,” Yates said.

“That’s the idea.” Beck powered up his suit’s magtouch system. “I know it’s here.” But where?

“Maybe we should just backtrack around to A523? It might connect, you know.”

“It doesn’t. Stay put and keep your eyes open.” With that, Beck jumped up onto the wall with a clang, his magtouch gloves and boots locking to the plating. He scrambled up to the ceiling and hung there like a lizard. A heavily armored lizard.

Then he reached into his equipment bag for his mubi-scope. His suit had a decent sensory grid array, but he needed the mubi’s rangefinder for this. He flipped through the controls and activated the laser sight.

“You taking measurements up there?” Yates asked.

“Something like that.” Beck sighted along the ceiling line, pinging the rangefinder along each section. At the same time, he monitored the IR visual band with AI-assist, running differential comparisons. It was a somewhat manual process, and they didn’t really have the time for a thorough scan, but Beck didn’t have much of a choice. Yates was right. There was no way they were going back in that hot zone.

The drone had identified a passage in the bulkhead somewhere in this area during a quick flyby, but was destroyed before they could access the actual topo data. Based on the drone’s path, Beck had narrowed the area of interest to this tunnel, but couldn’t get more granular than that.

“Forty-seven minutes,” Yates announced.

“That’s not helping.”

“Sorry, Captain.”

Suddenly, the scope’s AI-assist chirped and flashed. It had found something. A void behind the panel.

“The ninth section down,” Beck said. “I think that’s it.”

He skittered along the ceiling and met Yates at where he judged the hatch might be.

“I don’t see anything,” Yates said.

Beck didn’t respond. He just worked his hands around the edges of the panel, probing and pulling.

There.

The micro-h actuators in his gloves augmented his natural strength enough for Beck to be able to pull the panel loose. It popped free and clanged to the floor.

“Holy shit,” Yates stared up at the newly revealed passage. “So she was right.”

“It looks that way.” A twinge of sadness hit Beck at the thought of Anca Barr. She had made considerable progress in deciphering a section of the Ambit which referenced this part of Bandala and had begged him for the opportunity to see Bandala for herself. He allowed her to join the incursion team. Now she was in a coma—as good as dead. Carved up by arthrodes. It had been a brutal attack, and Beck was still unable to process what had gone wrong last night. 

But there was nothing he could do to change the past. So he put it out of his head.

“Stay close and watch our rear,” Beck told Yates, as they climbed up into the passage.

Anca Barr had identified a duct that led directly to node A548, the location of the two galleries which held the Tabarroh Crystal and the Aanthangan clone bot. If Denn Jerue was right about the clone bot.

But this duct wasn’t simply a shortcut to A548. It was a way to circumvent the hot zone where they had lured this area’s security bots.

If all went well, and the locking mechanisms held, the bots wouldn’t even know he and Yates were there. He’d grab the Crystal and hightail it back to the Freya.

But first they needed to make it to the node, a spoke-and-hub hallway complex that connected twenty-four galleries.

The duct they were climbing through was barely wider than Beck’s armored shoulders. Their helmet lamps illuminated a grime-encrusted utility shaft. Cables and conduits stretched along every surface. It was evident that the duct was not intended to be a passage for lifeforms. Which was why it was a safe way to access the node.

At least, that’s what Beck believed until he glanced back and saw the micro drone buzzing towards Yates like an angry hornet.

“Freeze!” he yelled—at the same time drawing his Pace from its leg holster in a single fluid motion.

Blam! Blam!

Two shots. Two direct hits. Not bad for shooting at a ten centimeter wide target a half dozen meters away. In cramped quarters.

Yates had cried out in alarm and lunged away, as the drone exploded in back of him.

A few moments later he lifted his head back up. “What the fuck was that?”

“Hopefully nothing more than a repair drone,” Beck said. “But I wasn’t about to take any chances.”

“How about a little warning next time you blast at my head!”

“That would have defeated the purpose,” Beck said. “Let’s keep moving.”

The truth was that drone could have been a scout just as easily as it could have been a repair unit. And there was a chance that the security bots now knew where they were.

* * *

They clambered through the shaft for another seven minutes, traveling up between levels, passing various junctures, and dead ends until they emerged through a hatch into a proper corridor—sized for the hover-cart trains the Yueldians had used to service the twelve thousand or so galleries of Bandala.

Yates had his nose into his Aura, checking the topo. He looked up in surprise. “Son of a bitch, you did it! We’re in A548. How did you—?”

“No time for backslapping, Virg. We’ve got less than 40 minutes to get what we came for.” 

Beck didn’t want to get into the details of how he knew where A548 was. He checked his own Aura. If the rest of his data held up, it would be fairly easy to find the proper gallery and vault which contained the Tabarroh Crystal.

They moved through the wide corridor, hyper-alert for any signs of security bots.

Yates was holding up well, Beck thought. He had never figured the data scientist would be so enthusiastic about field work. 

Usually Virgil Yates was content to spend the entirety of an expedition on the ship, tucked into a science station. But during this mission he really showed some fortitude and stepped up. Especially after what had happened to the rest of the crew.

As he continued through the maze-like node, another stab of remorse hit Beck. Four of his people lay on the ship in a state of near death. Even if they pulled through, they might suffer permanent damage. All because of him. All because of a horrible miscalculation.

“Uh, Captain.” Yates stood frozen, a few meters in front of him. “You need to see this.”

Beck looked over to what Yates was pointing at.

It was a body. 

A human body. Badly decomposed. Not much more than a skeleton.

“This isn’t 500 years old,” Yates said.

No, it wasn’t. Beck stooped down to get a closer look. It was hard to tell, and he was no expert, but the body looked like it had been in place for a decade. Two at the most. The corpse was wearing a flight suit and a blaster lay by its skeletal hand.

“That’s an old Crown Blazer.” Yates motioned to the blaster. “Maybe a 251. My dad had one.”

Beck nodded. “I think I know who this is.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Ever hear of Raff Ostler?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

Beck stood up. “Old timer. Mission lead for Allegro. There was a rumor that he didn’t come back from the expedition back in ’39.”

“I hadn’t heard that.”

“Well, Allegro kept it hush-hush. Not good for business if your key guy bites the dust during a mission. Let’s keep it under our hats until I get a chance to speak with Allegro.”

Yates quickly recorded some images of Ostler’s body as documentation, and then they continued on their way.

At a T-junction, Beck checked his Aura once again. He motioned to the left. “This way.”

They traveled down the corridor and then turned a corner. The corridor ended in a heavy-duty pressure door.

“We in the right place?” Yates asked.

“Let’s open her up and find out.”

Yates used a donokkal on the door, and the locking mechanism disengaged with a satisfying clank.

On the other side of the door was a hexagonal chamber with similar pressure doors on every wall. Rows of utility lights winked on as they entered the room.

“Here’s where it gets interesting,” Yates said.

“Not really,” Beck said. He walked over to one of the blast doors. “This leads to the gallery with the Crystal.”

“You’re sure about that, Captain?” Yates pointed to another door on an opposite wall. “Because according to my topo, this one leads to the hot zone.”

Beck double-checked his own topo. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“We don’t want to be opening the wrong door.”

“We won’t be.” For all his bravado, Beck knew this was the most perilous section of their journey. But it wouldn’t serve any purpose to make a big deal of it. Yates knew what he was getting into. 

Beck stepped aside and motioned to the door he was standing near. “Have at it.”

Yates didn’t question him further; he just used the donokkal on the locked door.

Beck went first through the door, blaster up. He really should have had Yates and the borral gun lead the way, but, hell, he was the captain.

Thankfully, the corridor beyond the door was empty. No prowlers. No arthrodes.

“Okay, should be a straight shot now,” Beck said. “Still, keep your eyes open.”

“Always, Captain.”

The short corridor led into a cavernous circular chamber with a center column that rose thirty meters or more. Both the inner and outer walls had rows and rows of two-meter square doors inset into them—several hundred in all. Everything was bathed in the soft glow of illuminated beacons.

This was it. The first gallery on his list.

Beck immediately raised his blaster and looked up towards the ceiling, checking for guardian bots. He didn’t expect to see any, since they had been lured into the hot zone, but you never knew. And he didn’t like surprises.

“All clear,” Yates said. He had made a loop around the center column to check the other side of the gallery. “Is this where the Crystal is?”

“Not quite.” Beck got to work on one of the square doors, using his zephyr, a custom-built controller that provided access to low-level systems. It was optimized for smaller, more secure locking mechanisms like the one on this Yueldian vault. 

Less than fifteen seconds later, the vault door slid open to reveal what looked to be a standing figure. It was a two-meter-tall humanoid.

But it wasn’t human.

“I don’t believe it!” Yates took a step backwards, clearly spooked by the sight.

“Denn Jerue was right,” Beck grinned as he entered the vault to get a better look. “A goddamn Aanthangan clone bot! I just wish we had more time to run a DTA on it. But the Tabarroh Crystal is the priority.”

“You go get the Crystal,” Yates said. “I’ll do the audit.”

“That’s not a good idea.” It was against protocol to split up under these conditions.

“I’ll be fine. Old Man Jerue would never let us live this down if we came face-to-face with a clone bot and came away with nothing.”

Beck considered for a moment. “Fine. Get what you can out of it, but don’t move from this area.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

* * *

According to his data, Beck expected to find the Tabarroh Crystal in the second gallery over, but he needed to pass through another connecting corridor to reach it.

He moved quickly but cautiously through the corridor into the gallery. It was a twin of the gallery with the Aanthangan clone bot. Same central column. Same myriad of vault doors.

Beck checked his Aura and got his bearing. The vault with the Tabarroh Crystal was on the central column, but up about fifteen meters—if he counted correctly.

He activated his suit’s magtouch and while it powered up, he opened the comm back to the ship.

“Nanu, it’s Beck. I’m at the vault.”

He started to climb. “Looks like I have twenty-seven minutes to get this thing and get back to the ship.”

No response.

“Nanu, come in.”

Shit. The jury-rigged comm relay was probably out of range. “Yates, you there?”

Nothing.

That was odd, Beck thought. He tried one more time, but Yates didn’t answer.

Maybe there was something in this gallery blocking the near-band. He didn’t have time to worry about it now. He had reached his target.

Still clinging to the wall like a fly, Beck pressed his zephyr to the vault’s locking mechanism and set it to work. This time it unlocked the vault door even faster—probably because of its learning algos.

Unlike the vault which held the Aanthangan clone bot, this space was smaller and shallower. In fact, Beck could barely fit inside.

Carved into the vault’s back wall was a niche, and resting inside the niche was a gem the size of Beck’s fist.

The Tabarroh Crystal.

As he approached it, the gem began to glow.

He froze, heart thudding. Did it have some kind of defense mechanism? The Tabarroh Crystal wasn’t supposed to be dangerous, but it was ancient. At least 3000 years old. Who knew what mysteries it held within its glittery depths?

Beams of light danced from deep within the Crystal, then, suddenly, they lanced out upon the walls of the vault.

Beck dropped to the ground, trying to evade the beams. But he wasn’t quick enough.

A blueish shaft of light caught his shoulder.

Thank Dynark, it didn’t do anything.

The prismatic beams appeared to simply be low-powered light beams. Probably more for show than anything else.

Beck took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He reached out one gloved hand to take the Crystal, but found himself hesitating.

Unbidden, the memory of a certain conversation came into his mind. It was a conversation he had with Johan Walton many years ago. The older archaeologist shared the tale of a particularly gruesome expedition in the badlands of Ganagara. Walton had been excavating the Ciborium of Malajar, but his entire team—twenty-eight people—lost their lives and Walton barely survived after wandering lost through the canyon lands for nearly two weeks.

Walton had blamed all of his misfortunes on the Ciborium itself.

When Beck asked him to explain what he meant, the old man just said, “Some things in the universe aren’t meant to be found.”

Beck shook his head, unconsciously trying to clear his thoughts. He was here to do a job and, damn it, a job is what he would do.

Squatting down so that he was at eye level to the Crystal, Beck peered again into its coruscant interior.

Here goes nothing, he thought.

Then in a single swift motion, he snatched the gem from its niche.

He froze, expecting something horrible to happen. But the Crystal just dimmed as if abruptly separated from its power source.

After a few moments, Beck shrugged to himself, tucked the Crystal into his bag, and began to climb down the central column. He needed to get back to Yates. They had less than twenty-four minutes to return to the ship.

He departed the gallery and retraced his steps through the connecting corridor. As he walked, he tried to hail Nanu and Yates again, but no one answered.

Not good.

As he entered the gallery with the Aanthangan clone bot, Beck raised his blaster and called out for Yates.

No answer.

Definitely not good.

Beck felt his muscles tense and his pulse pound. The first tickle of panic bloomed deep within him. 

He cautiously made his way around the central column to the vault where he had left Yates. The Aanthangan clone bot was still there, but there was no sign of Yates.

Had the security bots taken Yates out? There was no sign of a struggle. No blood. No blaster scorches.

Beck tried the comm again, but it was still dead. This was unbelievable.

Nineteen minutes left. He needed to get back to the ship. Get Nanu going on a scan. They had to find Yates.

“Captain?”

Beck spun to see Yates coming from the doorway to the hexagonal chamber. Relief mixed with anger.

“What the fuck, Yates? I told you to stay here. The comm—”

“Did you find it? The Crystal?”

“Of course I found it. What I want to know is why you—”

“Hand it over.” Yates swung the borral gun up and trained it on Beck’s center mass.

“Very funny.”

“I’m completely serious, Captain. Toss me the Crystal. Or I’ll cut you in half and take it.”

Beck couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“What do you think you’re doing, Yates?”

But Yates didn’t answer. He just fired a quick burst from the borral gun. The blast intentionally missed Beck, but not by much. And Beck had to dive to one side to avoid being scorched.

“I thought you didn’t know how to use that thing.” Beck clambered back to his feet.

“I lied. Now hand over the Crystal. The next shot’s going to be at your balls.”

Beck hesitated, still having a tough time accepting what was going on. But he reached into his bag and withdrew the Tabarroh Crystal. It looked dull and lifeless.

“It’s bigger than I thought,” Yates said. “Slide it over to me. Carefully.”

“And then what?” Beck asked. “How’s your little mutiny going to play out, Virg?” But Beck didn’t need to ask the question. He knew how it would play out.

Beck stooped low, tensed his legs, and surveyed the area using his peripheral vision. Although Yates couldn’t see his eyes behind his visor, Beck didn’t want to signal his moves.

And then he slid the Crystal along the floor. With all his might. The artifact flew past Yates like a hockey puck, and Yates did exactly what Beck expected him to do.

He took his eyes off Beck. His head turned to follow the Crystal.

Just for a second.

But it was enough time for Beck to dive towards the central column.

A blast from the borral gun exploded against the wall near him, showering the area with sparks. Instinctively, Beck read the field of battle, calculating angles of fire and pinpointing where exactly he needed to be in order to escape.

He knew it was a long shot, but he had to try. He sprinted around the column, legs pumping with effort. Then, as he cleared the curved of the central column, Beck threw himself into a slide—right towards the gallery’s exit.

A blaster bolt loudly crackled over his head, close enough to momentarily notch down his audio sensors. Deafened, Beck scrambled to his feet. He wondered if he’d feel the blast that would kill him before he heard it.

Amid another volley of blaster fire, Beck raced into the corridor that led to the second gallery—where he had found the Crystal. As far as he knew, it was a dead end. He had nowhere to run.

But he did have a strategic advantage. Once he cleared the entrance to the gallery, he could flatten himself against the gallery’s outer wall. That would mean he’d be directly perpendicular to the corridor that Yates needed to come through in order to finish him off.

As Beck got into position, he realized his brain was still fogged by the unreality of it all. What had happened to Yates to make him turn traitor? Who was he working for? SPRD? The Emoralians?

And what was he planning to do?

Was he going to murder Nanu and steal the ship? Or was she in on this?

Or maybe Yates thought he could dupe her. Convince her that her captain was dead, and that he was the only survivor.

Every possibility made him feel sick.

He waited, tensed and ready to attack, for what seemed like forever. But there was no sign of Yates.

What had happened?

Beck checked his Aura.

Fourteen minutes remained on the countdown timer.

A plan formed in his mind. It was going to be close, but if he could get to the landing deck, he might be able to warn Nanu—even without a working comm unit. He could use his blaster on the ship’s fore sensor array. That would certainly get her attention. If she wasn’t in on the mutiny, of course.

But he had to hurry.

* * *

Beck knew that there was still a chance—probably a good chance—that Yates was waiting for him in the corridor, ready to blast him into oblivion once he showed himself. So he moved slowly and cautiously, keeping close to the wall, minding his angles.

But he didn’t see any sign of Yates. Other than the borral gun, discarded in the hexagonal room.

Damn it.

That could mean only one thing. Yates dumped the weapon because he needed to move quickly.

As he debated taking the borral gun for himself, Beck noticed something about the hexagonal room.

The doors were wrong.

Specifically, the door that was open 20 minutes ago was now locked shut. And another—which had been shut—was now open.

It took him a few seconds, but then he realized what had happened.

No! 

He slammed his fists against the now-locked door. It was the door back to the way they came.

And the other door? The one that was now open?

That led to the hot zone.

* * *

Sean Beck slumped to the floor, panic and despair washing over him. He had tried all possible exits. He had tried his zephyr. He had even tried blasting through the door with the borral gun.

Nothing.

He was trapped.

So he pulled his knees to his chest and closed his eyes.

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that. But, finally, he was awakened from his reverie by a sound. It was a metallic clacking sound. Far off, but getting closer. As he listened closer, he realized it wasn’t a single thing making the clacking sound. It was dozens. Or even hundreds.

Getting closer.