Omega Games (8 page)

Whatever it was, it bumped and pushed its way through the debris until at last it stopped in front of me. “My systems are seventy-three percent functional. ”

“Congratulations.” I stepped around it. “Duncan? Answer me.” I had to stop and clear my way several times before I reached the open hatch leading down into
Moonfire
’s second level, a long and narrow crawl space where different systems could be accessed for

maintenance and repair. Reever could have been thrown down there, I thought as I looked over the edge, although the entire compartment appeared to have been reduced to a pit of snarled alloy. I heard a warning Klaxon, and breathed in. I didn’t smell fresh smoke, but the air seemed to be thinning.

If
Moonfire
was leaking atmosphere, I would have to put on an envirosuit. But first I had to find Reever. Metal groaned and shifted, and I hurried toward the back of the cabin. The machine child followed. My husband lay under a heap of supplies that had been ejected from one of the storage units. His face

was bruised, and his bottom lip had been split open, but by the time I reached him he had worked his body halfway out of the pile. “I’m not hurt badly,” he told me, and looked at the machine child. “Access vessel operations array.”

“Working.” The thing’s body made several odd noises. Blood began oozing into my eyes again, so I tore off the cleaner sleeve from my tunic and used it to bind the gash on my forehead. Then I began clearingaway the debris on top of Reever. As I worked, I saw that the screens of all the viddisplays had been blown out, and most of the consoles were either smoking and sparking, or inert.

“What is that thing?” I asked Reever as I helped him to his feet.

“An automatic maintenance drone.” He winced as talking made the cut across his lip widen. “The crash must have activated its power unit. The Jorenians use them to clean decks and perform minor repairs.” I glanced around us. “It’s going to be busy for a very long time.” The little drone made high-pitched sound. “Vessel operations array accessed.” “How much damage to the ship?” Reever asked it. A panel on its chest slid away, revealing a small data screen, which blipped and scrolled. “Searching

systems database. Engines offline. Navigation systems functional. Primary power cells, ninety-two

percent drained. Hull, intact.” “We won’t lose atmosphere, but we can’t launch without refueling.” Reever pulled a fallen wall panel upright and shoved it out of the way. “The crash caused as much damage as Alek did, but something else happened to the engines.”

“Just before the engines failed, I heard an explosion in the back,” I told him. “Did Davidov go back there

before, when you were showing him the ship?” “He said it was too crowded for both of us, and had a look on his own.” Reever closed his eyes for a moment. “He must have planted a charge on the power couplings while I waited for him.”

“Power couplings, ruptured. Atmospheric controls, offline.” The drone’s chest screen scrolled with numeric readings. “Transmitter, destroyed—” “End status report.” Reever inspected my garments. “Are you injured anywhere else?”

He pulled me into his arms and held me for a few moments, then kissed me. “Don’t forget me again.”

We went over and looked through one of the side view ports. “You are an excellent pilot,” I told my husband. “We should have smashed into that range of cliffs over there. Where are we?”

“Vector seventy-eight degrees,” the maintenance drone said, “three hundred forty east, plus seven solar, eleven point five kilometers outside colony settlement, Trellus, outer-eitri region, Varallan.”

“Stand by,” Reever told the drone.

I went to the helm and checked the exterior sensors that were still working before gazing out at the surrounding surface. Outside the ship, curtains and spires of rock dust danced with languid speed, forced into the airless dark by our violent landing.

“We will need weights and tethers if we leave the ship,” I said to Reever. “The planet has almost no gravity.”

I couldn’t see the domes of the colony from here, but there were some shelters at the end of the plain, built between ragged pillars of carbonized rock and what appeared to be gaping black holes descending beneath the surface. Behind them, I could just make out several huge, motionless machines covered in dust.

“What are those things?”

“Ore conveyers and crushers. In the old days, Alek used the abandoned mining operation here to hide his slave runners,” Reever told me. “There are thousands of tunnels on this planet.”

The mention of Davidov’s name made my fingernails dig into the edge of the console. “I would like to drop him down one of them.”

“Stay here.” Reever picked his way back to the droplift. The controls sparked when he punched them, and the door panels to the air lock only slid open an inch before jamming.

I heard the sound of an incoming relay and straightened. “Reever, someone is signaling us.”

“Signal transmitted by trader vessel
Renko
,” the maintenance drone said. “Originator is Davidov, Aleksei, Terran, current position ship’s owner and flight captain—”

“Shut up,” I told it as Reever and I hurried back to the helm.

None of the displays worked, but the audio portion of the relay from the
Renko
came over the console with perfect clarity.

“I’m reading two life signs, and you’re moving around the interior, so I know you’re both alive and ambulatory,” Davidov’s voice said over the com panel. “I felt sure you would make it, Duncan. Remember the time you brought down that crippled fighter with all those slaves crammed in the weapons hold? You have to admit, this was a cake-walk compared to that.”

My husband muttered something ugly under his breath.

“I regret that I had to be the one to shoot you down this time,” Davidov said, “but you will recall that I
did
offer to smuggle your wife onto Trellus first.”

“I imagine you have a lot to say to me,” Davidov continued. “That’s the other thing, old friend. I took out your transmitter before I forced you to land. You won’t be able to signal me or any of your friends on Joren. I also used a small charge to rupture your power couplings. I’m afraid that the only way you’re getting off Trellus is on my launch. I’ll be happy to transport you and the wife, but you have to do something for me first.”

“He wants the bounty,” I said, my throat tight.

“It’s simple: Find the shifter.” Davidov’s voice grew harsh. “Find it, capture it, and put an end to the games it’s been playing down there.”

Reever frowned.

“Is he talking about the Odnallak?” I asked, but my husband only gave me a blank look.

“It won’t be difficult,” Davidov told us. “When it learns about your wife’s unique physiology, it will not stop until it can play with her. I suggest you dangle her in a prominent place. One more thing: Don’t kill the Hsktskt. I’ve become very fond of her.”

I wondered if Reever’s former friend had gone mad. He was speaking as if he had.

“Find the shifter and kill it, Duncan,” Davidov repeated. “You and the lovely doctor are the only ones left who can. Because if you don’t, I will bombard the surface of Trellus until I kill you, Jarn, the shifter, and every other living thing on this planet. You have thirty solar days.
Renko
, out.”

Five

Davidov’s threat echoed in my head, which was starting to spin. I tried to take a deep, cleansing breath, and found that I couldn’t. My ears suddenly popped rather painfully, as if someone had clapped their hands over them.

“Something is wrong with the air,” I told my husband, who was staring down at the ruined helm. His back and shoulders were rigid. “Duncan.”

He straightened and turned to me. “The air?” He breathed in and touched one of his ears. “The cabin pressure is dropping.” He summoned the maintenance drone. “Report the current levels in the environmental supply tanks.”

“Working.” The drone made more of its noises, and then said, “Atmospheric supply levels at twenty-seven percent.”

“Is the hull leaking atmosphere?” Reever demanded.

The drone fell silent for a few moments. “Negative.Supply tanks two, six, and nine empty and no longer functional. Estimated repair time, three solar days.”

“We have to get into suits,” my husband said. “We’ll run out of air in an hour.”

We couldn’t stay with
Moonfire
or try to make repairs without air. “Do we have enough oxygen in the suit tanks to walk eleven kilometers?”

“We’ll have to carry spare tanks with us.”

“We may not have an hour,” I told him. “I think colonial security has found us.”

The machines surrounding the ship stood ten feet tall, and were covered from top to bottom in heavy, dark blue armor. The armor plates seemed to absorb the light from the ship’s exterior emitters rather than reflect it. Tight bundles of shielded power cables ran the length of their frames, feeding into hydraulic boosters and weapons ports.

They had been designed to appear somewhat humanoid, with two upper extension grapplers like arms that ended in four-pronged, claw-shaped grips serving as hands. Instead of two legs, they had three, which formed a jointed tripod base.

“Drednocs.” Reever came to stand beside me, and I looked at him. “A type of battle drone developed by the League during their war with the Hsktskt. They were used during the heaviest surface fighting. Very little can stop them.”

I recalled what Davidov had said about the Hsktskt. “Why would they be used here, on a trade colony?”

“I don’t know.” He stiffened as something struck the hull outside. “They’re fitted with sonic torches and are going to cut their way in. We have to put on suits, now.”

We found two intact envirosuits, and I removed the supply tanks from two others. As we dressed, Reever issued terse instructions.

“Do not identify yourself to them,” he said, “or relate that we met with Alek, or that he and I have any connection. If they wish to know why we were in orbit, say that we were surveying the planet when we experienced engine trouble.”

“Can’t we just hide somewhere until they go away?” I asked as I pulled the envirosuit up over my legs.

Vibrating, squealing metallic sounds shook the hull.

“Thermal scanners are standard on all security drones,” Reever told me as he fastened the air seals at the back of my suit, and turned to let me do the same with his. “They’ll pick up our heat signatures wherever we hide. If they’re ATD programmed, they won’t harm us.” He saw my expression and added, “Security drones are usually programmed to apprehend, transport, and detain.”

“Usually.” The word hardly comforted me. “How can they be stopped if they are not?”

His eyes went gray. “Let me worry about that.”

I prepared to argue the point, but the sounds of grinding metal grew louder. I fastened the breather over my mouth before closing the suit’s helmet.

“Can you hear me?” I said over the suit com.

“Yes.” He closed the collar gasket on my helmet. “Turn around.”

Reever and I had just enough time to check each other’s seals before we were flung across the cabin into the breached air lock with every bit of debris that was not secured.

As a viselike device attached itself to my leg, I looked out through the open air lock panels. The security drones had not bothered to board the ship; they had simply reached in with their grapplers extended to And drag us out they did, lifting us from the deck so that our legs dangled several feet from the planet’s surface.

The drednoc holding me brought me up to its cranial case and scanned my helmet. “Identify,” it said in Jorenian.

I barely remembered in time what Reever had told me. “I am Resa,” I said, borrowing my old friend’s name again. “Our ship’s engines malfunctioned, and we were forced to land here. We are not armed.”

I hoped the natives were friendly toward accidental visitors. Before the rebellion on Akkabarr, the harsh winds of my homeworld forced down many ships. Any crash survivors were killed, and their faces, along with those of the dead, were skinned and delivered to the Toskald as tribute.