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Chapter Twenty-Six




They reached the Stolen Dragon without any further trouble and checked in with Vessani, reporting their encounter with a lone commando before heading deeper into the statite. Joshua took the lead, and Nathan followed close with his pistol drawn. Rufus and Aiko brought up the rear.

The path to the pumping station was neither straight nor easy. Joshua shined his light at the ceiling, illuminating a cluster of broken overhead pipes and then following them along a cramped incline. The group climbed for a while, then found themselves at the precipice near a huge, dark pit, and began a slow descent, all the while using those pipes as guides. Whatever had once flowed through them had drained out long ago, but Nathan could still spot clumps of tarlike residue in the recesses around and below each breach.

They reached the bottom, and Nathan gazed back up at where they’d entered the space. They’d descended maybe five or six stories into a roughly cylindrical chamber. Black sludge caked the floor, and the uneven coating gave a little under their feet. He stepped carefully, not in the mood to trip and fall.

The floor’s vibrating, he thought. Something’s active nearby.

Joshua led them across the sludge plain to part of a bulky machine that gave Nathan the impression they could only see a small piece of it, as if the rest were submerged into the floor and back wall. Joshua placed a hand against the machinery’s surface and motioned Nathan to do the same.

Nathan felt the working machinery through his glove, then switched on his commect.

“This the pumping station?”

“That’s right.” Joshua indicated several pipes that branched off above and to either side of the machine. Some were busted open, and a person could walk upright down the largest ones. “Rufus and I checked each of the broken lines. Most of them are blocked off.”

“Clogged?”

“No. They’re valved, most likely due to the leaks we see here. The lines with active material flow are more interesting to us. You can see there and there where the larger lines pass through the back wall. If we can find a way through or around that wall, we should be able to spot them on the other side and follow them farther.”

“To the computronium tank?”

“That’s what I’m guessing.”

“These lines are huge,” Nathan said. “You really think they’re full of computronium?”

“It would explain why this part of the statite was hit,” Rufus said. “The attack was meant to lobotomize the megastructure, so to speak.”

“But if you’re right,” Nathan replied, “then there’s a lot of the stuff left in circulation. More than enough to control a place this size.”

“You’re wondering why the statite doesn’t seem more alert?” Joshua asked.

“Yeah.”

“It’s possible the attack had some other effect. Something beyond the obvious physical damage. A ‘mental’ component that corrupted the statite’s intellect.”

“Which tracks with my own experiences,” Rufus added, then paused to collect his thoughts. “I have a theory for what we’ve seen so far. The hostile visions from the juncture and what we saw on the Sanguine Ring both have a common thread, and that’s the damage this place has suffered. What if the statite is trying to gather the resources it needs to fix itself?”

“Flesh and metal for the wound,” Nathan intoned.

“Quite so,” Rufus said. “But it’s so broken and twisted, all it’s doing is spreading corrupt commands to nearby technology.”

“What if something happened to the rest of the computronium?” Nathan asked. “Would that put this place out of commission?”

“It might,” Joshua said, and Rufus gave them a concurring nod.

“Then let’s see if we can find where these pipes lead. Look around, you two.”

Joshua and Rufus spread out while Nathan returned to Aiko’s side. She looked up as he approached, which he found mildly encouraging.

“We’re going to see if we can find a way through this wall,” he said.

“I heard.”

“You hanging in there?”

“I suppose.” She lowered her head. “Sorry.”

“What for?”

“I really thought you told me to shoot him. I . . . I’m sorry. I made a mistake, and it’s eating at me. I wouldn’t do something like that if I didn’t think you wanted me to. Not unless we were in immediate danger.”

“It’s all right. All you did was shoot a commando. He’ll have backups.”

“Sure, but . . .”

“I’m more worried about you than anything else. This place—”

“The sooner we leave, the better,” she interrupted, deadly serious. “It’s only going to get worse. But for now, I’ve got it together, Nate. Trust me.”

“Okay.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “I do.”

A helmet light flashed past them, and Nathan looked up.

“Over here, everyone,” Joshua radioed.

The four of them gathered at the base of a crack in the nearest pipe, wide and tall enough for a person to pass through if they slouched a bit.

“Our path forward,” Joshua said with a wide, one-armed flourish.

“So it would seem.” Nathan climbed in, pistol in hand, and started down the pipe.


They followed the empty pipe through subtle curves and shallow inclines before it leveled out. Smaller pipes branched off the main trunk, too small for a person to fit through. Nathan shined his helmet light down each—not sure what he expected to find—but all he saw were cramped shafts that ended in darkness.

They trudged on, their boots squishing through black residue that might have once contained a fraction of the statite’s god-thoughts but now was nothing more than muck. More arteries converged with the main pipe, and it widened enough for them to stand up straight.

Their path stretched ahead of them, on and on, a wide shaft of oppressive black, illuminated by helmet beams that wavered with each step. The floor shuddered at one point, and Nathan couldn’t help but speculate that some massive, ancient device had switched on nearby.

It’s waking up, he thought warily.

They pressed on, deeper and deeper into the pipeline. Nathan began wondering if they’d have to force their way out when his helmet light caught a warped section of pipe up just beyond the next turn.

He rounded the bend and came within sight of a vertical tear, the edges bent outward by some ancient event, pale synthetic vines hanging limp around the opening. Nathan slid through, careful not to touch any of the jagged edges, and dropped down. He swept his light around the new chamber, and the beam fell over a few branching passages.

He froze when his beam glinted off the red armor of another commando. The Jovian was on the ground on his back, his head to one side.

Nathan raised his pistol, aimed, but then relaxed.

The Jovian wasn’t moving, and now that his eyes began to focus on the combatant, he could see damage to the chest and on one side of the head. The commando wasn’t holding a weapon either; a rifle lay several meters out of reach.

Nathan crept forward and turned the Jovian body over with his foot, for it was a body. No persona resided within this machine shell, not with that much of the head missing.

Joshua and the others joined him by the mechanical corpse.

“Are those bullet holes?” Joshua asked, pointing to the damaged chest.

“Sure do look like gunshots to me.” Nathan glanced around the dark space and caught divots along the walls that might have been stray impacts.

“But then who shot him?” Rufus asked.

“Not us, obviously,” Nathan said. “Which doesn’t leave many options.” He gestured toward the nearest dark opening. “Josh, any idea which one of these we should take?”

“That one, I think.”

“You think?”

“It looks like it’ll take us in the same general direction as the pipe we were in, which should eventually lead us to the source.”

“All right, then. We follow that one until something makes us turn back.”

Nathan led them across the chamber to the passage Joshua had selected. He reached the threshold, put one foot inside, but stopped when his helmet light caught on something bright red and gold, this time moving down the far end of the tunnel.

Nathan turned on his heel and motioned frantically for the party to reverse course.

“Turn back! Turn back!” he shouted, for the moment forgetting to key his commect.

He dashed back to the tear in the pipe, taking long, bouncy strides in the low gravity. Despite being unable to hear his voice, the others picked up on his nonverbal cues and piled back into the pipe.

Nathan put his back to a bent part of the pipe wall and switched off his helmet light. Rufus shut his off as well, but Nathan had to grab Joshua by the shoulder and shake him before the engineer caught on and turned his own light off.

Aiko didn’t have or need a light with her commando body’s vision systems.

She knelt by the opening, and Nathan crouched down by her side.

“See anything?”

She didn’t immediately respond.

“Aiko?”

“What?”

“Do you see anything in there?”

Another lengthy pause.

“Aiko?”

“What?”

“I asked you a question. Did you—”

“I heard!” she snapped. “And I don’t see a damn thing in there!”

“No need to get angry.”

“I’m not angry!” she replied, sounding very much like she was. “Why? What did you see?”

“A commando in the tunnel.”

“Well, there’s no one—”

The pipe shuddered horribly, and harsh light spilled in through the crack. Nathan braced himself against the pipe’s rounded wall with a stiff leg and hazarded a glance outside.

“Damn!” he exclaimed.

They must have been close to the wound cavern because a corvette had just rammed itself through the opposite wall! The ship crashed forward silently in the vacuum, the floor before it folding up like an accordion until the ship jammed itself in tight and stopped. A piece of debris smashed against the side of the pipe with enough force to bow it inward right next to Nathan before spiraling away.

The craft’s searchlight created a shimmering pool across the floor, which filled the chamber with luminance. A spiderweb of fractures covered the domed cockpit, and the starboard stub-wing had been torn off during the crash.

Six commandos charged out of the tunnel Nathan had almost ventured down. They raised their weapons and opened fire on the corvette’s cockpit.

“What are they doing?” Nathan gasped.

Bullets rained against the cockpit, and the fractures spread across the transparent armor. The corvette’s only unblocked weapons bay snapped open, and a rail-repeater swung out. It blared a steady stream of metal and blew three of the commandos to bits, while the others scattered, firing on the move, the turret struggling to track their movements.

A shot ricocheted past the tear in the pipe. Sparks spat from the impact, and Nathan flinched back before resuming his vantage.

The heavy fire from the turret blasted two more Jovians to scrap, but the last one threw a grenade at the cockpit, blowing it wide open and exposing the pilot and copilot at last.

The turret traversed toward the surviving commando, constantly firing, blowing huge gouges out of the floor.

The commando took aim and unloaded its rifle on full auto, hosing down the cockpit interior.

The turret stopped swiveling but continued to fire, pummeling a single location against the floor before—Nathan presumed—it ran out of ammo and finally fell silent.

The commando lowered his weapon, his body language conveying a vague sense of weariness.

Nathan snapped out of cover and hit the victorious commando with three quick shots. The first flew wide, but the second blasted a deep gash in the chest, and the third struck the neck. The commando’s head exploded off his body and bounced away while the headless remains took a tentative step forward before collapsing to the ground.

Nathan ducked back into cover, pistol drawn, nerves tense. He wasn’t sure how long he crouched there, but eventually he urged his arms and legs to move again. He peeked into the now-mangled chamber, saw no obvious threats, then dropped back down to the floor. He stared at the Jovian bodies strewn about, and the spaceship jammed into one side of the room, trying and failing to make sense of the situation.

Nathan weaved his way around tiny craters and broken limbs before he stopped in front of the corvette, its cockpit blasted open and only the bottom halves of both pilots still seated.

“What is wrong with you people?” he shouted at no one in particular. “At least have the decency to ask around before you throw away a perfectly good spaceship!”

Someone tapped him insistently on the shoulder, and he turned to see Joshua looking back at the pipe with a worried face. He followed the man’s gaze until he caught sight of Aiko.

She stood just below the tear with her rifle raised to her shoulder—

—and aimed straight at his head.

“Oh hell,” he breathed.

The pieces began to slot together in his mind. He wasn’t witnessing some sort of poorly executed Jovian copy-feud. No, something was driving them toward violence against their comrades, and that something was the statite itself. Both Rufus and Aiko had seen the signs, had heard the rumblings of madness emanating from the statite’s battered corpse.

And now here I stand with a really scary gun aimed at my head.

Nathan nudged Joshua out of the line of fire, and he backed off. The rifle stayed trained on Nathan.

He frowned at Aiko, then keyed his commect.

“You going to shoot me?”

She didn’t answer.

He saw Rufus slide through the breach in the pipe, almost looking like he was about to tackle Aiko. Nathan caught the man’s gaze and shook his head. The cleric nodded his understanding and took a step back.

“Is there a reason you’re pointing that thing at me?” Nathan asked.

The commect channel remained silent.

He swallowed and began to walk toward her, arms spread to either side.

She didn’t move, didn’t respond, simply stood there like a statue, the gun trained on his head.

He approached her, one slow foot in front of the other, never taking his eyes off her. His heart raced, beating in his ears, pounding in his chest, but he pressed through the fear, closing with her until he at last stood in front of her. The barrel hovered before his eyes, so close it took effort to focus on it.

He reached up—slowly—and touched the tip of the barrel, then pushed it to the side. Aiko resisted at first, holding her aim firm. But then something softened in her, and Nathan managed to nudge the barrel aside.

Aiko dropped the weapon, and it clattered to the ground.

Nathan let out a long, relieved breath.

“I’m sorry!” she cried.

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean to— I didn’t think—” She shook her head. “I’d never hurt you!”

“You almost did.”

“You don’t understand! It was like a whole chorus of voices all shouting at me in my own head, drowning the real me out with their demands! It was terrifying!”

Nathan stepped forward, put his arms around her and drew her close. She put her arms around him and squeezed him back.

“I’m so sorry, Nate!”

“It’s all right now. You’re all right.”

“No, I’m not! I’m not safe from . . . from this place! I need to switch off! I need to do it now!”

“Okay. You go right ahead. We’ll take it from here.”

“I’m sorry, Nate! I let you down!”

“No, you didn’t. You know why?”

“Wh-why?”

“You didn’t pull the trigger. You fought back whatever corruption overcame these Jovians, and you won.”

“Not for long. I can feel it worming its way into my head again. I need to switch off! I need to do it now!”

“Then do it.”

“I’m sorry!” Her body shuddered, and her limbs drooped.

Nathan lowered her to the ground, then looked up at Rufus. “Think you can get her back to the ship on your own?”

“As long as I don’t run into any commandos.” The cleric scooped up Aiko’s body. “What about you two?”

“We’re pressing on.” Nathan climbed back to his feet with fire in his eyes. “We still need to put this damned place out of its misery.”


Nathan wasn’t sure how they were going to “put this damned place out of its misery,” but they weren’t going to succeed by cowering aboard their ship. Marauding parties of insane Jovian commandos represented a very real threat, but the good news was they seemed to be too busy killing each other to hunt for the Stolen Dragon and its crew.

The two men pressed on down the dark passage. The light from the crashed corvette shrank away behind them, and he and Joshua switched their helmet lights back on. The path turned sharply to the right, then curved back in a wide arc, almost as if they were circling a large chamber or unseen piece of machinery. The bend in the corridor remained consistent for a while, and Nathan tried to guess how big the object might be. Maybe half a kilometer across? Maybe larger? There was no way he could know for certain without laying eyes on it.

Nathan’s commect clicked in his ear, and Joshua spoke to him in a whisper.

“Light up ahead.”

“I see it.”

They followed the path to a pool of dim light spilling from a wide gash along the outside of the curve. A tangle of thick cables hung from the ceiling, obstructing much of the view. Nathan pushed the cables aside, his pistol held at the ready.

He peeked his head through to find a wide shelf that extended out into the wound cavern, its surface covered with pale machine vines, shattered supports, and broken chunks of ancient detritus Nathan couldn’t identify, some sagging as if they’d been half melted long ago.

But it was a wide, relatively flat space with access to the cavern. That by itself was good to know.

“Our ship could land here,” Joshua said.

“I was thinking the same thing.” Nathan backed away and let the drape of cables fall. “Let’s keep going. We should be able to reach Vess from here and coordinate, but let’s not risk that until we need to.”

The two men marched on through the darkening gloom. They came to a collapsed section of the path but were able to climb over and around the blockage before pressing on.

Nathan grimaced as they trudged farther into the statite, wondering if they were walking in one big circle, if the path would eventually deposit them back at the crashed corvette. He began to consider turning around when his light beam caught on a wide path leading inward.

“What do we have here?” he muttered with a grin, his pace quickening with the discovery.

They followed the path inward, toward the center of the space they’d been circling, and Nathan became acutely aware of the vibration traveling up through his soles. Something was still running. Something big.

They squeezed their way through a narrow press of dangling cables that opened into darkness. Nathan swept his beam around, catching glimpses of distant objects above and around them, but the beam’s narrow profile and the immense size of the chamber made it difficult for him to form a complete picture.

He maxed out the helmet light, and Joshua did the same.

And then he whistled.

The path had led them to a massive domed chamber with huge pipes branching away in all directions from what Nathan assumed was the upper half of a spherical tank. He spotted some gaps in the floor, sidestepped to gain a better view, and managed to confirm the entire chamber—and the tank in the center—were both spherical.

“The computronium tank,” Joshua breathed.

“Forget ‘tank,’” Nathan said. “This is more like a reservoir! It’s huge! How much do you think a vessel that size could hold?”

“I couldn’t say for certain without doing some math. Millions of liters, at least. Maybe billions.”

“If it’s not empty.” Nathan pointed. “Looks like something busted the side in pretty good.”

“Yeah. We may be able to see inside from there.”

Nathan took a step forward, but something caught his eye, and he turned, flashing his beam across a cluster of pipes to their left. He searched back and forth across the formation.

“What is it?” Joshua asked.

“I thought I saw something move.” Nathan kept searching for half a minute, then harrumphed to himself. “Never mind. This place must be getting to me.”

They crossed over intertwined layers of cabling and structural supports that formed much of the floor and came to a wide, diagonal gash with smoothed edges that gave Nathan the impression of having once been melted. Pale synthetic vines clung to its edges, almost like they were trying to pry it open further.

Was the statite’s brain the target? If so, why not finish the job? Did the statite fight back in some way, resulting in the mess we see all around us?

Those thoughts brought another concern to mind. If the statite possessed internal defenses, and it was in the process of waking up, then how much time did they have before this slumbering behemoth decided to squish them all?

A cold chill shivered through his body.

The two men peered into the central tank, and Joshua whistled. The tank was over half filled with a thick, black fluid that flowed and rippled from the intense pumping action beneath the surface.

“That’s black computronium!” Joshua exclaimed, grinning ear to ear. “There must be enough processing power in here to run . . . well, anything! Everything! You could manage the entire solar system with a computer this size!”

“Why all the pumps, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why move the computronium around at all? Why not just keep it all in one spot?”

“It’s hard to say,” Joshua replied, “but pentatech is rarely a static technology. The statite’s systems would have changed and grown and adapted over time. It may have even been responsible for producing other, lesser machines. In that context, having a control system that could be moved and stored in pretty much any container would be useful for such a self-modifying system. There may also be heat management advantages. Easy to manipulate a liquid for more surface area, which can result in faster cooling and more energy spent on processing.”

“Looks like about half has drained out,” Nathan said. “Either through this break or another downstream from here.”

“I’m surprised this much has survived.”

“Maybe that’s why the statite is spinning.”

“Why do you say that?” Joshua asked.

“If we were in free fall, then there’d be nothing holding all that computronium in place. It would have spilled out long ago.”

“Oh, yeah.” Joshua nodded thoughtfully, still ogling the liquid treasure.

“Maybe the statite put itself into a lazy spin to prevent what’s left of its brain from falling out.”

“I wouldn’t have worded it like that, but yes. I suppose that’s possible. Regardless, I believe we’ve found what we’ve been searching for. There’s a very good chance this lake of computronium has been behind every oddity we’ve come across. The cycles at the nekoan deifactory. The Sanguinian cyborgs and their flesh pit. Rufus’s twisted visions. The Jovians losing their minds and killing each other. We can trace all of it back to this spot.”

“All the brain power of a god,” Nathan said, “and all this thing can do is spread chaos and death.”

And it’s waking up. Things will only get worse from here, I’d wager.”

“Then how do we put this place down before that happens?”

“I’ve been considering that very problem since we found the pumping station.” Joshua looked him in the eyes, deadly serious. “You’re not going to like what I have to say.”



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