Chapter Twenty-Four
Nathan stood in front of the others, a hand resting on each of the consoles.
“Josh?”
“Yes?”
“You still think this statite is for star lifting?”
“There’s no way to know for sure, but we’ve seen a few signs that support that conclusion. The tip of the statite did resemble a laser aperture, for instance.”
“Then you believe this place contains a habitat-melting superlaser.”
“I do, yes.”
“And now the Jovians have it.” Rufus sighed.
“A question for everyone.” Nathan glanced around the cockpit. “What do we think the Everlife will do with this place once they find a way to control it?”
“Whatever the hell they want.” Vessani snorted. “Who’s going to stop them?”
“Who indeed?” Nathan said, not yet ready to drop his bombshell.
“The statite’s destructive power may very well eclipse every military in the solar system.” Joshua paused. “Combined. The Union and the Concord would cease to exist as they are today. They would have no choice but to submit to the Everlife because fighting would amount to nothing more than a society-wide suicide pact. Perhaps our governments would limp along for a while, but in name only, because the Everlife would be calling the shots.”
“Anything to add, Aiko?” Nathan tapped his temple. “How are those voices?”
“Annoyingly present. Thanks for asking.”
“What about the statite?”
“Well, I know they’re my people—former people, really—but I wouldn’t leave them so much as a fork, if I could help it. Never mind a superlaser!”
“Then it seems we’re all in agreement,” Nathan said. “If the situation continues as is, a lot of bad stuff is going to happen.” He leaned toward them. “So, let’s do something about it.”
Stunned silence followed. Joshua’s jaw actually dropped.
“Look, people,” Nathan continued when no one else spoke up. “Like it or not, we’re the only crew in a position to stop them. So, I say we do just that. We stop them.”
“How?” Aiko asked pointedly.
“I don’t know. But the way I see it, we either take our chances and run, or we stick around and prevent the Jovians from destroying our collective ways of life.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Nate,” Rufus said, “but this one is out of our league.”
“I need to sit down.” Joshua sank into one of the jump seats and placed his head in his hands.
“You and me both.” Aiko plopped down into the copilot seat.
“Okay. Not the responses I was looking for,” Nathan said, “but at least you’re all not screaming at me.”
“I’m thinking.” Joshua laced his fingers through his hair. “To achieve something like that, we’d have to . . . I don’t know. Destroy the entire statite or something.”
“Not with the weapons we have,” Vessani said. “This ship has five torpedoes left. That’s hardly enough to scratch the statite’s hull, and only if we hit the same spot with all of them.”
“Which means we need help,” Joshua replied, sounding deep in his own thoughts.
“I doubt the Jovians will be too keen on lending a hand,” Aiko pointed out.
“No, not them.” Joshua looked up, his hair a mess from his fingers. “But maybe we can use something else.”
“What do you have in mind?” Nathan asked.
“What if we hit the statite with the most powerful force in the universe?”
He looked around expectantly, but when no one spoke up, he added:
“I’m talking about physics!”
“Ah.” Rufus nodded. “I should have guessed that one.”
“Hear me out,” Joshua began. “The statite is speeding along at fifty-three kilometers a second. I don’t care how sturdy it is. If it collides with something at those speeds, it’s going to hurt. A lot.”
“Hmm.” Nathan rubbed his chin. “You could be on to something here. We’re inside Venus’s orbit, but there are still plenty of hazards for the statite to smash into, such as Mercury and its moons. Or Sol, for that matter.”
“But how do we change the statite’s course?” Vessani asked. “It’s too massive for our ship to push.”
“And even if we could, the Jovians won’t let us,” Aiko said. “They’d blast us off the hull as soon as we tried.”
“Yeah.” Nathan sighed and crossed his arms. “I do like where you’re going with this, Josh, but until we—”
Rufus cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s gaze.
“Perhaps there’s an easier solution,” the cleric said with a crafty smile. “I can ask the statite to change its own course.”
“You really think this is going to work?” Vessani asked.
“We won’t know until he tries,” Joshua said.
“We’re still inside. Am I the only one worried about that?”
“No,” Nathan grunted, “but at least we’re close to the exit.”
“What about the Jovians lurking all over the place?” Vessani asked.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“That is the opposite of a plan!”
“Quiet, please.” Rufus sat down on the floor and folded his legs. “I need to concentrate.”
“Sorry,” Vessani whispered in a mousy voice. “I’ll shut up now.”
Rufus spread his fingers across his chest and bowed his head. He recited five prayers to Pathfinder, cleansing his mind, preparing the landscape of his thoughts for communion. He closed his eyes and activated his dormant implants—
—and that first, brief contact nearly overwhelmed him!
The statite’s juncture resonated through his mind, deafening his own thoughts with its mere presence. Words and ideas roared around and through him: screaming, screeching, seething. His entire being shuddered under the awesome power of a dormant sliver of a vanished god, crumbling under the immense weight of its dreams.
No, not dreams.
Nightmares.
Disjointed words and images pierced through his own mentality, suffused with both ancient pain and a fathomless hatred he could not identify. Anger and sadness and raw malevolence swirled together to form something alien and horrifying, but so much grander than mere human thoughts could comprehend. Vast waves of this mental ocean threatened to drown his lonely piece of flotsam.
The vision coalesced, and he found himself standing on the statite’s surface with Sol warming his back. Far to either side, the vast mechanical plain bent up unnaturally, folding upward and inward until it blocked Sol and blotted out the stars.
He found himself enclosed in a great metal sphere. Darkness fell, but only for a moment before fiery light bled through tears in the metal that took the form of the wound. The same shape repeated over and over again. Jagged mouths leered at him from all angles, some of them still, others babbling gibberish, but most speaking or shouting or raging in a deafening discord of alien thoughts.
Never before had he experienced a juncture so alive, so glorious, and yet so terrifying in the same instance. He shrank away from the connection, the insignificance of his frail mortal mind dwarfed against the slumbering power of the Pentatheon’s great works.
He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached, and he squeezed his eyes tight until tears leaked from the edges. He bowed his head and raised his open palms, reaching outward and upward.
Pathfinder, he began, his thoughts trembling. Hear our plea. Aid us in our time of need.
The wound-mouths yammered at him in an avalanche of overlapping chatter that threatened to bury him. His hands shook, and the muscles in his arms strained as an ethereal force pressed down upon them. His spine bent forward, and his brow dipped lower, reaching for his lap.
Pathfinder, please. We need you. We cannot allow your creation to be perverted into a weapon. Please, help us. We—
The mouths stopped their babbling all at once. All of them clapped shut, though some gnashed their teeth, metal screeching against metal. Several of them shifted across the spherical walls, not so much moving as tearing their way through the metal, leaving disjointed trails in their wake. They converged in front of him, pooling together, combining to form a single gigantic mouth.
Please, help us.
The terrible maw yawned open. Fire and brimstone blasted out, and hate-filled words exploded in Rufus’s mind.
I WILL NOT.
His eyes rolled back into his skull, and he collapsed into a twitching heap. A circuit breaker at the base of his skull popped, sticking out in a cylindrical tab, and smoke rose from its sides. His arms crossed, almost as if he were hugging himself, and he began foaming at the mouth.
“Hey there,” Nathan said. “You with us again?”
“Wha . . . ?” Rufus smacked his lips and blinked his eyes open. “What happened?”
“You tell us. You were the one gibbering on the floor.”
“What? Give me a second.” Rufus raised a shaky hand and rubbed it back over his bald head. He found the popped circuit breaker and pressed it into his skull, where it clicked into place.
“Take your time but hurry up,” Nathan said.
“I know.” Rufus took a few deep breaths, then stared at his trembling right hand.
“How are you, really?”
“Shaken.” The cleric looked up at the others. “The juncture was . . . terrifying. I could barely hear my own thoughts in there. I tried to pass on our wishes, but . . .” He shook his head.
“Not happening?” Nathan offered the cleric a hand.
“No.” Rufus took the hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. He steadied himself against the wall.
“Is there any point in trying again?” Nathan asked.
“He was on the floor drooling!” Joshua pointed out.
“No harm in asking the question.” Nathan patted Rufus on the shoulder. “Well? How about it?”
“I was? Drooling, I mean?”
“Yep.”
Rufus frowned and dabbed the corner of his mouth. He inspected the strand of saliva clinging to his fingertip.
“Oh dear.”
“That would be a ‘no’ then?”
“Nate, I’ve encountered some dangerous junctures before, but this is on a whole different scale.” He rubbed the back of his head, found the breaker tab again, and circled it with a fingertip. “My implants must have switched off to protect my mind. That’s never happened before. Whatever intellect is left within the statite is . . .” He looked up. “Nate, I don’t think what’s in there came from the Pentatheon.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something dark has taken residence there—something alien to me—and it’s filled the statite with an irrational rage. Whatever it is, it will never help us, and I fear what will happen if it ever fully awakens. I can’t imagine any of the Pentatheon’s creations ever being consumed by so much hatred. The mind in there isn’t simply broken; it’s been corrupted. Twisted, somehow. It is very, very dangerous!”
“All right. We get it.” Nathan gave the cleric another shoulder pat. “Whatever’s in there is bad news. We’ll try something else.”
“Okay, but what?” Aiko asked.
“I don’t know.” Nathan turned around in a slow circle. “Anyone?”
“Redirecting the statite looks to be a bust,” Vessani said. “Where’s that leave us?”
“Nowhere,” Aiko groaned. “That’s where.”
“Maybe not,” Joshua said. “If we can’t destroy the statite, then the next best thing is to royally mess this place up. We cause as much damage as we can before we cut and run. Let the Jovians lord over a ruin.”
“I’m all for making a good mess,” Nathan said, “but with what? Our torpedoes will barely leave a mark.”
“True. On the surface.” Joshua gestured toward the wound cavern outside. “But we don’t have to blast through the exterior. That job’s already done for us, and there’s a lot of this ‘cave’ we haven’t seen yet.”
“Okay, then.” Nathan nodded in thought. “You’re guessing there’s something juicy farther back in all this wreckage? Something our torpedoes might actually be able to hurt?”
“It’s a possibility. Here, look.” Joshua removed a stylus from the pilot console, cleared one of the vlass screens, and began to draw an outline of the statite. He then added the wound cavern, which cut into the interior, angling toward the statite’s front.
“The farther we travel down this wound, the closer we come to where we’d expect to find the main laser or its support systems.”
“And those are the true prizes the Everlife is after,” Aiko said.
“Exactly! Wreck those and we strip the Jovians of their new superweapon.”
“Now we’re talking!” Nathan grinned. “Vess? How’s it look out there?”
“That corvette just passed across the wound again. Looks like it’s still busy scoping out the surface. If we’re going to move, now’s the time to do it.”
“Then let’s go. Take us as far back into the wound as you can.”
“You’ve got it!” She took hold of the flight controls.
“And then what?” Rufus asked, grabbing a handhold as Vessani eased the ship out of the wrecked wall.
“Then”—Nathan flashed a quick smile—“we go for a walk.”
Nathan slid the helmet on and twisted it tight against the pressure suit’s neck ring. He would have preferred to venture into a derelict pentatech artifact with at least his old hard suit protecting his skin, but this was the best he could do under the circumstances. A catch in the neck ring locked in place, and a message appeared on the wrist vlass, indicating the suit was properly sealed.
He checked on the others who’d assembled in the cargo hold by the starboard airlock. Joshua and Rufus were almost finished suiting up. Aiko’s commando body could handle far worse than vacuum, and Vessani would remain with the ship.
“Here.” Aiko handed Nathan one of the Jovian commects.
“Thanks.” He shoved it into his belt next to his pistol and other equipment.
Joshua accepted his. “Won’t the Jovians hear us if we use these?”
“I’ve set the default signal strength as low as it’ll go,” Aiko explained. “That should drop the chances of the Jovians sniffing us out.”
“Let’s keep radio chatter to a minimum all the same,” Nathan said. “Especially if you’re close to the wound cavern.”
“What if we can’t reach someone and it’s important?” Rufus asked.
“Then bump the power up until you can,” Nathan said. “Everyone sealed up?”
“Ready.” Joshua gave them a thumbs-up.
“Good to go, Nate,” Rufus said.
Nathan keyed his commect and spoke into his headset. “Vess, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“We’re heading out. Josh and Rufus will look for a way deeper into the statite. Meanwhile, Aiko and I will see if we can find a decent path back to the wound cavern. Ideally, I’d like one of us to keep an eye on the entrance so we know when trouble starts moving our way. Mind the ship for us, and only call if it’s an emergency.”
“Got it. You can count on me.”
Yeah, he thought, smiling as he opened the airlock. I guess I can. Didn’t think so when we first met, but you’ve had our backs multiple times, and you handle yourself well in a fight. This job didn’t go the way any of us had hoped, but I’m glad you’re with us, Vess.
The four of them filed into the airlock. Nathan cycled it, opened the exterior, and stepped out first. The airlock provided a small pool of light that disappeared into oppressive darkness a few meters from the ship. He switched his helmet light on.
Vessani had managed to squeeze the Stolen Dragon deep into a tunnel that branched off the wound cavern. He doubted either he or Aiko could have pulled off the maneuver without crunching against parts of the uneven walls, but Vessani had only grazed a single jutting support as she backed the ship into the side passage.
Nathan shined his helmet light around and took in their surroundings. The floor—for lack of a better term—was an uneven mess of cables wrapped around thick support beams. He took each step with care, keeping an eye out for trip hazards.
The uneven terrain told him he was somewhere humans shouldn’t be. Deifactories could be mazes to the uninitiated, but at least they had flat surfaces to stand on and corridors to move through. This wasn’t meant for human traversal. He was standing inside the guts of a giant—potentially insane—machine.
But there was more to it than that.
The space didn’t adhere to comfortable orthogonal arrangement. There were almost no right angles to be found anywhere, even between what he thought of as the walls and ceiling, each of them ribbed by what looked like giant metal bones. He struggled to come up with a phrase to describe his surroundings and eventually settled upon “mechanized megafauna.” He felt as if he were stuck in the intestines of a huge, mechanical beast. A beast that, if it twitched or stretched the wrong way, would pop him like a zit.
“I already hate this place,” Nathan murmured.
The more he stared, the more unsettled he became.
Pale metallic “vines” spread across much of their surroundings, often ending in open and empty nodules, as if machines had been birthed from those pods. The vines stood out to his eye, both in hue and in how they’d spread without any obvious rhyme or reason, sometimes in opposition to the larger structural cues. Almost like they’d been fighting the original builders, morphing and modifying the statite’s interior with detrimental goals. Was he gazing upon a battlefield from the Scourging itself? The remnants of a machine infection introduced through the statite’s wound?
He wondered.
Nathan felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Joshua, who brought their helmets together.
“Rufus spotted a path we can squeeze through over there.” He pointed to a lopsided, triangular gap between two thick cable clusters. “We’ll check that one out first.”
“All right. Good luck.”
Joshua pulled back with a thumbs-up and, together with Rufus, they headed down the dark passage.
Aiko waved at Nathan and pointed to a section of the wall on the opposite side of the chamber. He joined her, and then realized the “wall” was actually the outer surface of a massive cylindrical structure that tilted upward and outward, curving away to form a narrow passage that might lead them back toward the wound cavern. Thick ribbing bound the cylinder at regular intervals, which provided surfaces for hands and feet like an oversized ladder.
Aiko mimed a climbing gesture, then pointed again.
“Works for me.” Nathan grabbed one of the ribs. “Good thing the gravity’s so light.”
He and Aiko began to climb.