Singularity (chapters 4 - 6)

FOUR _______________________

HAZARD PAY



ACHERON MANUFACTORING DECK
H hour -4.30


The shaped charge tore through the locking mechanism. Its fatigued metal offering as much resistance as an infant might arrest the fall of an elevator. The sharp punch of concussion violently ripped out from the point of detonation, pushing with it a wall of debris. Where the lock had been a jagged hole now remained, whistling hungrily as the pressure between the two spaces equalised.
An instant later, like it had forgotten that gravity existed, the lower section of the blast door fell away with a screech of tortured metal. The floor rocked violently under the enormous weight but that didn’t stop the armoured security team as they quickly moved into the flickering darkness beyond.
Dust hung lazily in the air, thrown up from the forced entry. Small halos of light penetrated the hazy wall as diodes from distant apparatus winked on and off with relentless machine efficiency. Here and there fluros hung from their brackets, stuttering wildly as they attempted to restore some semblance of light.
Steve could hear the hiss of blood in his ears. The silence that he was wading through was deafening, it was a physical force. The thump of his footsteps boomed through the dark like he was marking time on a parade ground. The only thing that seemed louder to him was his breathing. Heavy and restricted in the confines of his suit, he felt like he was suffocating. The feeling wasn’t alien to him, however. His reaction had always been the same, a spike of adrenalin, the feeling of freefalling out of control. It was a rush that existed only for a second before he clamped down hard on it and got on with the job. It was his responsibility to maintain discipline and control of his team, the rest of them could run and gun but he had to think two moves ahead.
“This place is a tomb” someone whispered over the comm as they moved through steadily, weapons up, scanning left and right.
“Shut up and cover your arcs” Steve snapped, his voice suddenly too loud in the cavernous dark.
The team continued its advance into the manufactory, treading as quietly as their exoskeletons would allow. The sensor suites they utilised probed the darkness tentatively, passively filtering through the throng of returns that reflected back at them. None of them went active with their sweeps, they were all too aware that doing so would be like setting off a flare, pin-pointing their location.
Sato crossed through the main entranceway towards the primary assembly area, Nizienko and Byrnes stalking silently either side of him. The momentum from the breach carried them past their initial search area quickly and without incident. Sato took a knee, Byrnes and Nizienko taking up a defensive posture around him. Across the way, Steve Liedecker and Jamie Kovacs did the same.
Four small lights blinked on Steve’s Heads-Up Display; the all clear signal from his team.
“Limit of exploitation reached,” Steve whispered, “entrance clear. Kai, take your brick through to Number One Assembly, I’ll head for Number One and Two Body Weld.”
“Copy that Boss. Moving now.”
Kai Sato picked up and moved further into the gloom, Byrnes and Nizienko shadowing his movements a few paces behind him. They moved around the portside wall and into sight of the Number One Assembly station. A large section of open ground dominated the area in front of the structure, an ideal place to pin the team down if they tried to cross it hastily. Sato knelt next to a gigantic support beam and scanned the area they needed to cross, his thermal viewer easily permeating the darkness. It appeared clear and with a quick gesture he ushered Byrnes across.
“John, Get over on the corner and cover that alcove”
“Yep” grunted Byrnes as he shuffled quickly across the open ground, weapon moving spasmodically left and right as he tried to cover everything at once. Sato and Nizienko remained in cover, watching the multitude of nooks and crannies that could be concealing a threat. Gantries, hatches, piping; all of them had the potential to provide cover for someone or something. He crossed the distance and slammed his shoulder into the wall unceremoniously, head peering around the corner, watching for any movement.
“Set”
Nizienko surged to his feet and jogged across the decking, covering out to the left now that Byrnes was in position. He was halfway across the gap when Byrnes’ voice exploded over the comm.
“STOP STOP STOP!” his words rattled out like a machinegun.
“SHIT!” hissed Nizienko as he stumbled slightly mid-step, unsure whether to withdraw back to Satos position or continue forward; right now he was exposed and vulnerable to fire. He hunched down and sprinted for the wall, his forward momentum making his decision easier.
Satos’ attention snapped over to Byrnes who had his weapon up and was sighting down the corridor between the Assembly stations wall and the portside inner hull plating.
“WHAT HAVE YOU GOT?!” he yelled, partially cancelling out the noise of Nizienko colliding with the assembly station wall.
“Not sure”
“Get sure!” Sato growled.
“I don’t know, I thought I saw something move down there.”
Sato pointed across the gap at Nizienko and then gestured over towards Byrnes. Nizienko nodded and cautiously shuffled to where Byrnes was kneeling in cover, weapon fixated on something in the distance. Placing his back against the wall, he leant over and peered around the corner before pulling back. A second later he took another, longer look, this time when he pulled back his body slackened, uninterested, “nothing, Kai, false alarm.”
Sato stood and jogged across the gap, shaking his head as Byrnes and Nizienko bickered.
“I’m telling you, I saw something move.”
“I looked, you douche, there wasn’t anything there, fix your optics.”
“I’ll fix your optics.” Byrnes muttered.
“Shut up!” Sato said, cutting in. “Jobs on, let get it done.”
Byrnes nodded and moved back from the corner as the team shuffled down the wall towards one of the larger entrances to Number One Assembly.
“What was that?” crackled Steve Liedeckers voice over the comm.
“Nothing boss, Byrnes thought he saw something.”
“Copy that. Keep it down and keep your eyes open. What’s your status?”
“We’re about to search Number One.” Sato said as he took position on the wall near the door.
“Roger. We’re at Welding one, this place is dead. Moving on to number two. Out.”
Sato listened for the link to close out before he spoke.
“You owe me a beer.” He said quietly, turning to face Byrnes.
“Yeah, whatever.” John shot back.
Sato turned back, a smile hidden beneath his mask. A second later Byrnes tapped him on the shoulder. Sato checked his gear, nodded and then tapped Nizienko, who did likewise. The brick was stacked up near the door, the air around them boiled with barely suppressed tension as they mentally psyched themselves up for the breach. Armoured thumbs clicked safety catches off; they were ready. Sato exhaled slowly for a moment before he spoke again. This time, he was all business.
“Go!”

Number one Welding had been a bust. Steve Liedecker and Kovacs had cleared through the immobile army of automated fabrication arrays without confrontation. They continued on into the Number Two Welding bay, quietly slipping amongst the Robotic welding arms that hung limp from their pivots. Kovacs advanced along the starboard wall, keeping the open area of the conveyor lane between him and Steve, who was progressing along the opposite wall.
“Whoa, check that out”
“What?” Steve asked, interest spiking.
“All the welding heads, they’re red hot,” Kovacs replied.
Liedecker glanced at one of the Robotic Welders as he patrolled past. Heat radiated off of it, forcing him to adjust the gain on his thermal optics. He tracked the power conduits that snaked across the floor to power boxes and transformers in the corner. They were hot too; the radiators that dominated their housings casting off waste heat into the surrounding area, ticking loudly as they cooled.
“Yeah, look at the heat sinks in the corner, they’re the same.”
“What do you think?” Kovacs asked as he swept a tangle or hanging wires out of his way to check behind them.
“I don’t know, it doesn’t add up,” Steve replied as he tapped at one of the touch screens hanging above the heat sinks. “This assembly bay has been going for forty minutes. But there’s no record of anything, it’s like somebody deleted it.”
“Yeah,” Kovacs mumbled, “I got a bad feeling about this”
“You got a bad feeling about everything”
Kovacs gave him the Finger and went back to searching. Liedecker waved him off and opened a link to Kai Sato’s brick.
“Sato, its Liedecker”
“Send.”
“Welding one and two are clear. Something’s been built but there’s no record of it.”
“Alright, Number One Assembly is clear. We’re pushing forward to Number two.”
“Good, swing around into Administration once your done there, see what you can find. We’ll clear the Stamping bay and RV at Moulding.”
“Roger that. Out.”
Liedecker closed the link and gave Kovacs a quick nod and the two of them moved through the exit at the rear of the welding bay. They continued down an adjoining corridor that served as the rear entrance to the Stamping bay. Liedecker halted short and knelt, peeking around the corner before motioning Kovacs through. Kovacs nodded and brushed past Steve, weapon up and scanning for targets. A moment later Steve was up and moving around the corner, he tailed a few steps behind, shadowing his movements.
The Main Stamping mechanism dominated the centre of the bay, its modular construction vanishing into a blurry dull outline somewhere near the roof. Kovacs shifted his arc as he approached the machine, covering high as Liedecker moved next to him to cover the forward area. Steve could hear the muted click and whine of Kovacs optics as he scanned the top of the structure.
“See anything Jamie?” he asked without taking his eyes away from the open area between the Stamping machine and the Starboard wall.
“Maybe,” he said after a moment, “But I think it’s just a thermal ripple. There’s a large area up there I can’t see, but I doubt anything can get that high up.”
“Agreed,” replied Steve, “let’s clear the rest of this bay and call Sato forward, get the fuck out of this place.”
Jamie nodded and realigned, walking forward with Liedecker. They continued around the machine, moving line abreast, looking over the top of their weapon sights, covering the area to their front. The half crouching gait they used looked awkward but kept their centre of gravity low. It also kept the larger, stronger chest plate facing toward their front.
“Shit,” Kovacs said quietly, “did you hear that?”
“What?” asked Liedecker.
“Everything just turned off” Kovacs replied uneasily.
“Alright,” Steve said after a brief pause, “weapons free.”
Clearing any kind of structure presents unique threats that don’t exist on a conventional battlefield. More often than not that involves breaching rooms where enemies are in established defensive positions covering the only entrances to those rooms. Even with breaching charges, grenades, explosives and the like, at some point the room has to be physically cleared. As counter-intuitive as it would seem, facing front-on to an enemy and presenting the larger heavily armoured chest area was a soldier’s best defence.
A better defence would be to not go into the line of fire at all but that would be counter-productive.
The exoskeletons that Steve Liedecker and his men wore were heavily armoured and could take an awesome amount of punishment. Grenades, RPG’s, IED’s, anti-material rounds, it could defeat them all. It was the main battle-plate, however, protecting the chest and back that was the strongest, a full seven inches of solid titanium turning the basic soldier into a walking tank.
It was this battle-plate- Steve was sure of it- that protected his torso from being crushed as he was flung across the room by a world shattering impact. He had only the briefest moment to register that he was flying backwards before he struck something. He gasped in shock as a lance of pain erupted through his body, white hot and burning. Another impact followed, but there was no pain this time, just a disconnected awareness of his body striking something, spinning him off-centre.
Somewhere close by he could hear a muted drumbeat. Dazed, his mind struggled to associate it with gunfire. A phantom image of someone swam into view in-front of Liedecker; it was Kovacs, He knelt down and shouted something, but Steve couldn’t make it out. His mind was distant, sinking into darkness. He groped for clarity, trying to understand what had happened. He never did get a look at what had hit him.
He tried to roll on to his stomach and get to his feet but his body wasn’t responding to his thoughts. He just lay there as everything went quiet, slowly disconnecting from his body. His vision faded to black, and then...

Nothing.









FIVE_______________________

ON A PALE HORSE...



ACHERON manufacturing deck
H hour -4.20

The gunshots had got their attention. The scattered curses and calls for backup across the comm quickly brought them running. Kai Sato and his team had rapidly covered the distance from Number Two Assembly to the Stamping Bay. Their powered exoskeletons ate up the distance easily, paying no heed to obstacles on the way-their objective was clear; regroup with Liedecker and Kovacs and re-establish the initiative in the situation. All other considerations were secondary. Whatever had got the drop on Steve’s team might be able to take two of them but Kai doubted this enemy could fight all five armoured troopers at once.
Sato went active with his combat suite that was incorporated into his Heads-Up Display. A familiar flood of information highlighted his viewing pane, outlining objects and crosschecking them from its database.
Thermal vision, Ultrasonic mapping, Lidar scanning, Radar; his energy signature lit the place up like a flare as his threat detection package went into its duty cycle. He scrolled through the settings to ‘Eyes On’ mode; cutting down the active scanning to only assess objects he was looking at individually. A small green upside down pyramid appeared in the near distance, indicating Jamie Kovacs position, close to him was another pyramid. But this one was grey.

Shit.

“CONTACT! SINGLE ENEMY MY POSITION! WAIT OUT!”
Kovacs voice was frantic, his transmission broken by rapid return fire. Sato checked his HUD readout quickly as they ran, they were only seconds away. He opened a channel to reply.
“Kovacs, Sato, we’re 50 meters from your loc, check fire to main entrance, acknowledge, over!”
“Sato, Kovacs, don’t ...!”
With a burst of ear-splitting static, the transmission cut short. Kai swore quietly to himself as they kept moving forward. For all he knew Jamie had just become their second casualty.
In front of Sato, Nizienko shot his hand up, indicating for the squad to stop. They decelerated as quickly as their suits would allow and slammed to a halt against the wall next to the main entrance of the Stamping Bay. They stacked up instantly and, with barely a pause, continued around the corner and through the doorway, weapons up and scanning for a target. Their sensor suites took in the dimensions of the bay, projecting enhanced outlines across the stowage racks and motorised stores trolleys. Overshadowing it all was the immense Stamping Assembly, clearly delineated by their actively scanning ultrasonic’s and Lidar.
Sato came through the entrance third, flanking Nizienko and Byrnes who had quickly fanned out to cover more ground. There was no skulking in the shadows this time; all three were aggressively postured to counter the suspected threat in the bay.
Byrnes saw it first.
“Target right” he coolly said across the comm as he pivoted smoothly and engaged, his Assault Rifle puncturing the air to his front. Its staccato roar engulfed the room as Byrnes laid down a thick sheet of suppressive fire.
This gave Nizienko and Sato precious moments to find cover and adopt a fire position. The sixty round magazine from Byrnes’ MS-80 lasted only a few seconds before it ran dry.
“STOPPAGE!” he reported loudly before scurrying awkwardly behind a nearby console housing that projected out from the base of the Stamping Assembly. Before he got there Nizienko was up from behind cover and pouring fire downrange.
Sato had gotten caught up finding cover in the chaos and lost sight of the target for a moment. Whatever it was, it was in cover at the Aft end of the bay. The combat suite in his HUD had no information for him either; it mustn’t have got a good enough look at the intruder.
Or it didn’t know what it was.
Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream, aggression spiking in unison. He welcomed the anger; he would need it to get out of this shit-fight.

So much for being subtle.

“GIVE ME A FUCKING TARGET INDICATION!” He screamed at Byrnes and Nizienko.
“Single enemy in cover, corner of Stamping Assembly.”
Sato did a quick double-take of Byrnes; it scared him how calm he could be when the pressure was on.
“What is it?!” Sato shot back.
“Unknown! Only got an outline before it went into cover.”
Kai did a quick assessment of the floor-plan on his HUD. The Stamping Assembly that commanded the centre of the bay offered an easy route for their attacker to out-flank them and hit them from rear. He jerked his head around to the left, looking for where the other team should be.
His HUD quickly outlined Steve Liedecker in grey; his damaged exoskeleton slumped in a heap against the starboard wall of the bay. Grey meant one of two things; his suit transmitter was offline.
Or he was dead.
Close by was the orange outline of Jamie Kovacs. A rapid scan of his suit located several damaged major servos and what appeared to be a crushed comm-set. He was still moving but with obvious difficulty. Doing anything in a damaged or unpowered suit was like trying to crawl with London’s population sitting on you.
“Keep eyes on that corner, I’ll secure the rear, cover the other team.” Sato said quickly before setting off at a running crouch towards Kovacs and Liedecker. Nizienko and Brynes status lights winked once in acknowledgement.
Kai covered the gap in little time and slid to a halt next to Steve’s prone body. His exoskeleton was a mess; the main battle-plate looked like it had taken a hit from a freight train. The only thing Kai knew could do this kind of damage to a chest plate was a shaped-charge, but there was no scoring or pitting that would have come from a charge of that size. Plus there was no burn marks or hole and he hadn’t heard an explosion either.
Closer inspection revealed what looked like paint flecks in the damaged section. But this paint was a different colour to Steve’s rig.
Something had struck Steve’s suit.
He buried the thought for a moment while his hands groped for a switch under a removable panel on Steve’s neck ring. Sato found it quickly and toggled it, a moment later his HUD uplinked with Steve’s suit. A few subtle gestures from his hands authorised what soldiers familiar with the system lovingly called the ‘Jump-Start’. A moment later Steve’s body violently convulsed as an electric shock brought him back to muggy semi-consciousness. He looked up while he was doing this to see how Jamie was coping.
He’d managed to half drag half crawl next to Kai, Weapon held limply up, attempting to cover their rear.
“You Alright Jamie?” he asked. After a moment he berated himself internally; Kovacs’ comms were down, he couldn’t hear him.
He tried again; winking and giving him an A-OK hand signal. Jamie replied with a weak thumbs-up and pointed towards the Stamping Assembly, Sato nodded and went back to tending Liedecker.
It took a moment for the thought to register that something was wrong. Sato had a horrible sensation like he was gaining too much momentum-losing control. He mentally back-peddled, replaying at a thousand frames per second, searching for some minute slip-up, or obvious error.
The only thing that came up was something that Kovacs had done. Something about his hand signal. His thumb hadn’t pointed up at all, it had pointed at the ground. Sato froze.
He hadn’t meant he was ok. Thumbs down had meant enemy sighted.

Idiot.

Realising his mistake, Sato spun on the spot and brought his MS-80 to bear on the unseen attacker. But all he saw was empty space.
Nothing.
His HUD didn’t register anything at all, Nothing on the thermal, no returns from his Lidar. He slowly scanned the area; eyes twitching from object to object, everything looked clear at the corner of the Stamping Assembly he was covering. He was about to continue reviving Steve Liedecker when something caught his eye ten metres to his right. He scanned the edge of the Stamping Assembly closest to him again, but everything still seemed clear.
Something didn’t feel right.
Steve Liedeckers ancient teachings echoed in his mind; God gave you eyes for a reason son. Now use ‘em!
Cursing his equipment, Sato switched off his thermal and went back-to-basics; Mk1 eyeball and flashlight.
He spotted it at once; somehow it had fooled his thermal vision. He knew what it was instantly. It couldn’t possibly be anything else. Nothing else was that big.
That terrifying.
Sato clamped his finger on the trigger of his MS-80 and unleashed a storm of Hyper-velocity 10mm rounds while he scurried backwards. His eyes remained glued to it, he didn’t dare look away.
He took it all in; monstrous hands that-given the chance-crushed steel, stone, bone. Legs like pistons of unbelievable power and speed. Everything about it declared ending and violence and death.
Its armour was so thick that shooting anything at it was just insulting, but the futility of it didn’t even enter Sato’s mind; there’s something comforting about going full auto.
It slowly lowered itself into a crouch beneath the storm of shells. Narrow slits that could only be eyes oozed violence and malice as it regarded him casually. Sato could have sworn his ineffectual attack was amusing it. Not that he had long to dwell on the thought; a nauseating click signalled his magazine had run dry. Automatically his body responded by dropping out the empty and reaching for a fresh one. Time seemed to slow as he went through the drill; he became acutely aware of what was happening around him.
He was aware of Jamie desperately trying to crawl away from the fight. He was aware of his team as they-too slowly-came to his aid. He was aware that he let himself be drawn into a trap. Everything came together for an instant and flowed towards one point and he realised-sickeningly-what it was doing.
It was waiting.
It wanted them all in one place. It had lured them all together so it could dispatch them more efficiently. Vertigo gripped Sato for a terrible instant. They’d been baited by his own wounded. He tried to cry out; to warn them. It would have done them no good, the outcome would still be the same. On a countless battlefields against insurmountable odds this thing had known only victory.
It emitted a low growl as it leapt. It wasn’t human. It sounded animal and savage, the resonance of it pierced Satos suit. The logical part of his mind retreated as fear coursed through him. He felt his stomach tighten, his pulse quicken.
He mouthed a word to warn his team. It wouldn’t help but he wanted them to know what it was that was about to kill them. The word stalled at his lips, too frozen to move. He was too late, the thing was right there, right on him. Its name lingered on however, even as it took him into the black.

Silverback.

The reboot was ugly. Riley had skipped most of the critical drive protection protocols in an attempt to get Anni back up as soon as possible. He sat silently, embraced in the dim emergency lighting of the Core room; nervous eyes watching her tertiary systems run their lazy start-up sequence.
“Two more minutes” croaked a voice from the darkness.
“Hmm?” grunted Riley, stumbling out of his reverie.
“Anni,” replied the man as he slid into view before John, Luc’s silhouette was unmistakeable, “She’ll be operational in a few minutes.”
“Figure that out all by yourself?” John muttered from behind steepled fingers.
“Well,” Luc responded, swinging a chair around to where John was sitting, “Being Chief Engineer I had to learn all kinds of things. Like reading for example.”
John looked to where Luc was gesturing, spotting the progress bar on a nearby display as if for the first time. Twenty minutes had elapsed since the initial forced shutdown.
“Oh.”
To John it felt like hours.
“The other teams are standing by for the handover.”
“Possible handover” Luc corrected.
John sighed, “She’ll be fine Epps. We’ve had power interruptions before, she’s always come back.”
“This wasn’t a power interruption” Luc said, miming the quotation marks with his fingers, “This was an attack.”
Luc regarded John with serious eyes, “She could’ve taken the lot, John.”
John stiffened slightly, taken back by the comment, “What are you trying to say exactly?” John said slowly, meeting Luc’s glare with one of his own.
“Don’t play coy” Luc replied calmly. “You know exactly what a power failure is to one of these A.I. systems. She’s had a few now.”
“And?”
“And?” Luc flung his hands out, exasperated, “And? You think being killed a few times over is fun? Wouldn’t upset you at all?”
John looked away for a moment, staring into the middle distance.
“She cut the Hardline herself for Fuck’s sake, John!” Luc yelled in frustration.
John Turned to Luc suddenly, Anger flaring. “That was to protect the ship!”
Luc considered what John said for a moment before replying matter-of-factly, “If that Hardline gets severed again, it stays that way. We can’t take the risk.”
John went back to staring at the progress meter, musing over what Luc had implied. The reboot was almost complete.
“This isn’t the Thermopylae Epps. She’s stable.”
“You’d want to be one hundred-fucking-percent sure about that.”
An explosion of orange and grey particles from the Pit signalled the restart of the Holographic array. The shadows that had gripped the two men retreated as the Core room was bathed in intense light from the projector systems. Riley ignored Luc’s last comment and started to look for the familiar shape of Anni amongst the supernovae of colours.
Something moved out of the shadows. The figure carried itself with authority, walking with a clipped pace of a service member; quickly but not hurried. There were no sensual tones or feminine colours. No quips about the room being a pig sty or John being unshaven.
This was not Anni.
It was a man.
The fact that it was a man wasn’t the part that had surprised John-Over sixty percent of the ship’s crew was male-it was the part where this man was wearing very obvious non-spacer attire.
He was wearing a business suit.
“Captain Riley?” He asked.
“He’s not here right now. Can a pass on a video message?” replied Riley as he exchanged a glance with Luc. They both shrugged their shoulders. “Post-it-note perhaps?”
“I must be misinformed,” replied the business man. The hologram glitched slightly as the man’s demeanour changed. His voice took on a graver tone, “I was told you were Captain John C. Riley of the UGS Acheron which is currently crippled above Europa.”
“I’ve got one of those faces” John retorted, not taking the bait.
“Well if you were said captain, you’d be interested to know that your security team has been neutralised and you ship infiltrated by a Class A combat chassis.”
The last comment made the hairs on the back of Riley’s neck stand on end. He didn’t like where this was going. The unidentified man picked up on the Riley’s shock at the last statement and took a moment to let it sink in; savouring the drama.
The suited man delivered his next line deadpan.
“Listen to me very carefully Mr. Riley.”






Six _______________________

DEVILS HANDS



ACHERON core room
H hour -3

It took a while to get everyone together, some were unconscious, some just reluctant, but they all found their way to the Core room. The tension in the air was tangible to say the least.
The business suited man broke the silence first.
“I’m not going to waste your time with useless rhetoric, so let’s...”
“What was your name again?” interrupted Steve, cradling his un-helmeted head in an armoured palm, “I didn’t quite catch it.”
The man, not used to being cut-off midsentence glared for a moment before speaking again.
“That’s because, Mr. Liedecker,” his people-person persona returned, “I didn’t tell you.”
Steve mumbled something unintelligible and slouched back against the wall, his weary face reflecting the battered condition of his exoskeleton.
“I’m sure you’ve already met my associate,” the man continued, gesturing towards the opposite corner of the room, “he doesn’t have a name as such. I guess you could call it a serial number.”
“Which is?” sighed Steve, trying to speed things up.
“Echo-Zero-Five” growled a voice from the darkened corner. It leaned forward ever-so-slightly as if to emphasise its meaning. Not that it needed to in the first place.
Steve shuddered mentally when he felt the deep bass tone of its voice in his stomach. He had no doubt in his mind that the Silverback was doing it on purpose, it was probably enjoying itself.
That thought made him shudder even more.
That same thought obviously hadn’t entered Epps’ mind, he was practically beside himself, eyes wide with childlike amazement as he studied the automaton.
“I can’t believe it. I mean, I thought all the production models were halted mid-construction. Especially after what happened...,” He trailed off, eyes dimming at the memory.
“They were,” Riley said after a moment, “which makes this whole situation highly...”
“Fucked?” offered Steve, scratching absently at a gouge in his armour.
“I was going to say illegal, but you’ve got a point.” Riley turned his attention back to the hologram. “Let’s get on with it, ok?”
“Straight to the point. I like that.” Smirked the man, “Maybe you are the captain after all.”
Riley stared at him venomously by way of a response.
An instant later a three dimensional map exploded into life around where the man stood. He manipulated it with subtle gestures of his hands, magnifying a portion that looked just as barren and desolate as the rest. An unornamented plain snap-zoomed into resolution, its breadth corrupted with deep fissures and surrounded by an imposing glacier field.
Steve Liedecker snorted in contempt at the man’s time-wasting holographic theatrics.
“A simple picture would suffice.”
The suited intruder shrugged at the remark and with practised ease smoothly rolled into his prepared briefing.
“Who I am and who I represent is unimportant at this point of our... venture. The task you are to carry out for my employer is what you should be more concerned about. Twenty four hours ago my employer lost contact with one of its facilities,” he indicated a point on the display, “here.”
“Shit” cursed Steve, letting his head sag. He knew exactly where this was heading.
“The Acheron is currently the only vessel within range that can offer assistance.”
“There must be a dozen other vessels within a light minute of here. Why not one of those?” spurted Epps.
“Those vessels are inadequately equipped to deal with this...development. I assure you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if there were other options at my disposal.”
“What if we refuse?” Asked Epps.
“Thats a good question,” replied the man, “now let me answer your question with another question. What’s to stop me turning the Acheron into a rapidly expanding ball of hot gas?”
He paused momentarily, letting it all sink in.
“What?” Epps replied, practically choking on his bewilderment.
“I was remarking about how I could quite easily turn your vessel into a vapour cloud. Mr Epps, I’ve taken control of this ship from a Tier 2 Artificial Intelligence, infiltrated its network and overpowered its security team with my own Class A combat chassis which I built under your very noses. Now please, pay attention.”
“Just shut it Epps. I don’t want him to sick his pet on me again.” Steve said, exasperated.
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t been preoccupied with beating its fists with your fucking forehead we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Steve didn’t miss a beat.
“Well, lucky your Manufactory didn’t get high-jacked by a shady corporate executive so he could build a Fucking Death-Bot, otherwise we’d be in some real pretty shit right now, hmm?”
Luc’s head turned so fast it was a miracle it didn’t come off at the Neck. His eyes burned into Steve with barely suppressed rage.
“Gentlemen,” interjected the suited man, “let’s not waste time playing the blame game, bickering like women. Accept this was beyond your control, and work together to resolve this.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Luc and Steve just stared at the man.
“Corporate workshop. Lots of action phrases, you know, doing words. Catchy stuff. Where was I?”
“Vapour cloud.” Someone mumbled.
“Ah, the vapour cloud. I’ll come back to that."