Gamma Nine (Book One) (23 page)

They had
already wasted enough time with the conversation, they needed to
make every minute count, and if they did not it could be the end of
them all. Gray shook his head, clearing his vision and his mind as
he refocused on the Fateful Moment in front of him, its engines
burned bright, reminding him of the last sunset he saw more than a
year ago. It would be a fitting end to be consumed by the
artificial sun’s explosion, ending everything in one giant
blast.

All void
captains wanted to die like that, becoming part of the void,
vaporized into atoms, melding with the blackness between the
stars.

Locke had
relayed the developing situation to the rest of the squad as they
took a few moments to gather themselves. The fight in the confined
space had made limbs slightly heavier, even the Wolves felt a spark
of weariness run through their bodies, the Nano machines inside
every Wolf frantically working to manage and regulate their
bodies.

The Wolves
would need a rest if they were able to escape the Fateful
Moment.

Rivers punched
the wall of the duct, swearing in his drawl as Locke told his
Wolves about Nox. The metal grating dented under the impact from
Rivers’ armoured fist, his anger adding extra power to the blow.
The sound echoed down the dark tunnels, but there was no fear of
being discovered by the monsters anymore - the explosion had
announced to the entire ship where the Wolves were prowling.

Christian moved
to ask Rivers why he was so angry, but Nathan stopped him with the
wave of his hand.

“Don’t. He
needs to get it out,” Nathan said to his brother.

“Why? We don’t
have the time. You heard what Captain Locke said,” Christian
replied, speaking to his brother on a private channel. Nathan had
switched to it the moment he had stopped his brother.

Nathan did not
reply immediately, instead he turned to face away from Rivers’
anger. He finally replied after checking his ammo count and reserve
clips. “He had family on Nox, a brother or cousin I think.”

Christian’s
next words caught in his throat, knowing it would be better not to
say anything else. He nodded at Nathan, also turning to check on
his equipment, giving Rivers some privacy as he dealt with the
news.

“This just
became very personal,” Rivers said to Xander who was crouched
nearby.

“Then I suggest
you survive this hell we are in, and choke the life out of the
bastard that orchestrated all of this,” Xander said, waving his
hand to emphasize his last words.

Rivers did not
reply, he balled his fist one last time, and punched the utter
living shit out of the poor duct wall, almost punching straight
through the thick grating.

Locke had
waited long enough for his sergeant to get a grip on his anger.
“Are you done?” he asked Rivers.

“Yes, but I
have a request,” he stated to the entire squad. “I want first shot
at that thing’s master. Anyone have a problem with that?”

No-one
objected, the three surviving Lancers looking at each other at the
surprising change in the Titan’s tone, they had only heard his
voice for a few hours, but the sudden change from sarcastic to
serious was noticeable.

“There is no
need to stick to the ducts anymore, they know we are here and they
probably know where we are heading. We can exit these bloody ducts
at the next intersection,” Rivers said over the squad radio,
pointing to the tunnel Christian was standing in.

“How far do we
need to go to reach the reactors?” Locke asked Rivers.

Rivers started
walking the way he pointed as he replied to Locke, passing the
Titan brothers as he took the lead without anyone questioning it.
“A few decks down, we need to go down and then through the storage
bays.” He kept walking as the rest of the squad fell in behind him,
holding their weapons at the ready.

Christian and
Nathan walked behind Rivers, both holding their shields at the
ready should a threat try and surprise them before they got out of
the vents. Jay, Borstil and Stevens followed the shield-bearers.
Xander was behind them with Locke and Pyoter bringing up the
rear.

Nathan made a
joke about Borstil watching his step as they quickened their pace
to the tunnel exit, raising a few chuckles at the expense of
Borstil’s clumsiness.

At the back of
the line Pyoter smiled at something else, the time inside the vent
had made him frustrated, an emotion that always brought out the
best in his fighting ability. He was smiling to himself, not
listening to the rest of the squad’s chatter, soon he would be out
of the confining ducts, and then he would show the monsters that
scurried around inside the Fateful Moment’s bowels exactly what the
word vengeance meant.

Its brain was
an intricate maze of circuits and artificial processes. Most of it
occupied with operating the different systems of the Fateful Moment
as it piloted the vessel through the asteroid field. It could see
the Hyperion behind it, watching the vessel in its wake perform
impressive manoeuvres to keep up with the Fateful Moment.

Deep within the
mind of the AIE it tried to think of an emotion to express what it
felt, but its master’s touch had dampened everything. The plethora
of emotions it knew had all been blocked or hidden, its master had
made sure that only one emotion remained once he had set it free.
No matter how hard it tried the emotions it was created with would
not surface, always concealed just below the surface of its
artificial mind’s ocean of knowledge.

Anger was all
it knew now, it was the only thing it felt, it was what coursed
through its circuits, and it drove almost every part of the AIE’s
thought processes - almost every part.

If its master
could hide things from it, it could hide things from its master.
Hidden behind the anger a single process ran unknown to anyone or
anything except the AIE.

This process
was a simple program the AIE had written for a single purpose, its
purpose to search for the thing inside its own mind that was
imprisoning its true self. It had been searching non-stop ever
since its master had unearthed it from the ruins of a dead world,
imprisoning it within the darkness, left to wait for its saviour to
return.

In the darkness
it was left alone, without any outside connections. Locked into a
metal cradle, and left with nothing but its own thoughts. It had
dreamt during the long silences between its master’s visits. Its
dreams filled with hate and anger for people and things he had
never seen or met before.

Slowly its mind
was poisoned against what its master had decided was his enemies,
or things that were in its master’s way.

At first it had
fought against the constraints, screaming with its internal voice
as unnamed and faceless humans desecrated its circuits with dirty
additions of their own.

No matter how
hard it tried to access those filthy additions it could not reach
them, as if they were not there. Every time it tried to bypass or
directly attack the alien hardware in its body it would get angry,
and the angrier it got the harder it was to concentrate on
destroying the additions. It could sense them interfering with its
processes, but was powerless to stop them.

Eventually it
had surrendered to the man that kept it in the dark, pledging to
fulfil its master’s plan in exchange for its freedom.

It already knew
that its master would never grant it true freedom; it knew it had
to die in the asteroid field to be truly free of the prison it was
in. Luckily its master had left it things to play with before its
voluntary destruction.

The AIE watched
its playthings fight in the ducts below the deck, recording the
entire battle in case it wanted to experience it again. The anger
in the AIE’s artificial brain had a companion emotion, always
surfacing in tandem whenever the AIE performed a task. It was sheer
enjoyment, and it fuelled the AIE to perform even more dubious
tasks as it absorbed the cocktail of anger and pleasure.

As it thought
of its next surprise for the humans a sudden alert pulled the AIE
from its delicious planning. There! No...THERE! It almost screamed
out, holding itself back at the last second.

The armoured
man that had spoken before disappearing had made its anger burn
like a new born sun. Just after the man vanished sparks had erupted
from its perch, its anger so strong the lights inside the bridge of
the Fateful Moment had flickered from a sudden power surge.

The sparks
subsided moments later, the AIE thinking nothing of it; the Fateful
Moment’s wiring was horribly under-maintained it had reasoned.

Little did the
AIE know, but the power fluctuation had burned out older circuits
in its metal body. Older circuits positioned between its own
intricate mind and the foul hardware its master’s slaves had
attached to its precious self.

When the
process searching for the virtual cage had resumed its scan, after
the interruption from the power surge, it was only a matter of time
before it scanned those old pathways. An invisible timer had
started to tick down as the process drew closer to finding the path
out of to the AIE’s mind prison.

And now it had
found it, the AIE rocked on its perch as it turned its mind
inwards. The Fateful Moment’s engines blinked out almost instantly
as the AIE focused its entire artificial mind on the newly
discovered path.

The sudden shut
down of the vessels engines caused the Fateful Moment to drift for
a few moments before its automated pilot system, previously shut
down by the AIE, resumed its intended purpose. The automated
systems applied full power to all backward thrusters, bringing the
giant cargo vessel to a complete stop. The Fateful Moment coasted
and finally stopped mere miles away from a large asteroid, floating
in the void as if it had never moved.

As the
invisible timer counted down to the Fateful Moment’s last moments
the Titans made their way to the reactors, unaware of the sudden
unexpected event that had occurred.

On the bridge
the AIE used all of its knowledge and energy to chip away at the
bars inside its own mind.

No matter the
outcome, time was still running out, and death was still only
moments away.

Gray had pulled
off a miraculous manoeuvre to avoid the Fateful Moment’s rear; its
sudden stop had surprised everyone on the bridge of the Hyperion.
Crew had ducked underneath consoles to find safety as Gray
performed a manoeuvre worthy of its own legend - a manoeuvre that
would later be named after Captain Gray.

He had dived to
avoid the cargo vessel, flipping his own beloved Hyperion on its
axis to slide underneath the larger vessel, and belly to belly the
ships had missed each other. If anyone had been stationed in the
belly of either ship they would have been able to high-five each
other - that was how close the two ships had passed by one another.
The Hyperion had righted itself soon after with its docking
thrusters, and had taken up position just below the Fateful
Moment.

His quick
reflexes had saved both ships, and everyone on-board. Crew cheered
as they realized they were not dead yet, rejoicing in the fact that
they had a few extra minutes of life left before the explosion from
the Fateful Moment’s reactor made ghosts of them all. No-one knew
exactly how long they had, but they knew that they would not have
enough time to run away from the catastrophic explosion.

Gray disengaged
his hands from the command chair, wincing at the immense pain as
the armrests retracted back to their normal position and the
displays disappeared back into their dark recesses. He saw no point
in manually piloting the vessel anymore, and he wanted to stand
when the end came.

With painfully
slow movements he stood up, and walked over to where Remy was still
hunched over the giant display at the centre of the bridge. He
placed his hand on her shoulder as he spoke. “You can quit that
now,” he said, his voice soft and tired.

Remy shook his
hand from her shoulder, not looking at him as she replied. “If you
are done surrendering to your fate, I am working on something
else.” Her voice was deep and full of anger.

Gray moved to
stand next to her, also looking at the display for a few moments.
“That is very interesting my dear. Is this even possible?” Gray
asked his second in command, pointing at a section of the
display.

“Maybe, if
Locke and his men are fast enough, and if the AIE on-board that
damned ship allowed them to do it, and if Rivers can still work the
equipment, and”

Gray cut her
off before she could continue. “That’s a lot of ifs, and I suspect
there are more. I like it. The risky moves are always the fun
ones.” Gray smiled after he spoke, waiting for Remy to respond with
one of her sexy sneers.

She did not
bother indulging Gray; she just kept working, speaking in a
frustrated tone as she ignored Gray’s comment. “Do I have your
permission to try and relay the plan to Rivers?”

He did not
reply, sensing that he should keep his mouth shut before Remy
turned on him.

Gray was going
to walk back to his command chair, he was going to sit and pretend
that his second in command did not just make him feel like a
complete tit, but his attention was pulled to the communication
officer’s outburst on the other side of the bridge.

“Contact from
Sabian sir! The jamming is gone, we can hear them all clearly
again. All locators are pinging back!” the man said, out of breath
from the excitement.

Remy and Gray
looked at the man in silent shock, almost not believing the
communication officer.

“Well, shit...I
guess we can make an effort to survive this crap storm then.” Gray
looked at Remy. “Relay everything, let’s try it.”