Tech Planet (Project NightStorm Book 2) Page 14
"I'm not too crazy about starving to death in an underwater grave, I'll be the lure and beside assuming these things can smell it already got my scent," Arri said.
"You're taking the gun with you?" Grayson asked.
"It might be able to withstand a bite from those teeth, it might recharge in time but mainly it feels good to be holding a solid weapon, even if it's as effective as a paperweight."
"Try not to let it bite you," Grayson said face perfectly straight.
"Thanks, advice to live by," Arri said.
He stepped into the water neckband light turned off, slowly he descended five feet. He kept his mind calm by performing a moving meditation. He concentrated on the feel of his muscles, the rise and fall of his chest, the sounds of his breathing. He cleared his mind of all thoughts and floated allowing the occasional images from his subconscious to dance through like a smoky animated slide show.
"Ready," Grayson said, "you realise we only have one harpoon."
"I'm open to other plans," Arri said.
"Sorry, I've got nothing."
Arri hit the lights sending a bright beam shooting out into the darkness, distorted by the movement of the water. He held the gun in one hand, kicked his legs back and forth and waved his free arm in concise circles.
The blob in the darkness moved close, the extremely large teeth flashing in-between the mouth opening and closing. In the back of his mind music started to play a rapid dance beat with a theme of flames. The creature had him in its sights, Arri was calm his breathing under control he was in the moment. He stopped moving his arms nodding his head from side to side in time with the song in his mind, then he focused snapping his eyes up staring the creature down a smile lifting the sides of his mouth.
From above on the island beams of energy struck out hitting the creature time and time again. It still bore down on Arri. The glowing bar on the side of the gun had reached the fully charged position.
He took careful aim, and waited, he miscalculated the speed the shark was moving by only a fraction.
"Oh-" Arri said, veering suddenly to his right, the mouth of the creature and those enormous teeth missed him by centimetres. The jet fins didn't they caught him square in the back, a vast burst of water pressure that turned him upside down and span him round. As he spiraled out of control he curved first upwards his head and shoulders breaking the surface before being pulled back down. Even as his body stopped the world kept spinning, high above him now he heard someone dive into the water.
Grayson charged at the shark, harpoon weapon blazing, Arri watched the underwater world moving up and around out of time to the currents of the water. He saw Grayson make the same mistake he had underestimated the speed of the monster. He saw Grayson turn at the last moment and watched horrified as the man's legs disappeared into the razor sharp mouth. With a wry twist of its head, it sent the remains of Grayson falling to the floor of the chamber.
The creature advanced on Arri still thrashing its head, twenty feet away, fifteen feet. He adjusted the stock pushing it back into his shoulder. Ten feet, more harpoon bolts flashing from above. Five feet, he pulled the trigger.
The shot went straight into the shark's mouth, exploding inside, causing a plume of thick smoke to pour out. Its momentum drove it forward, Arri was caught by the top of its nose, he doubled over half leaning on the head of the shark, monster and man fell towards the chamber floor.
18
Awake
Marcus didn't know how long he had spent, laying in silence, his good eye watching doctors come and go. His muscles exercised by short electric pulses, his water and food taken care of by several of the tubes connected to his body.
As beds go it was comfortable, the mattress gave just enough to form a snug fit around his body. One of his biggest complaints about the room he was in, lack of colour.
Though his body was broken his mind had been active. Jumping into his program matrix today was the day he was going to re-connect to the galaxy-wide network. He had spent hours carefully constructing the code needed, holding it in his memory before committing it to the matrix. The damage done by the intrusion had all but destroyed his most vital programming. He moved the last piece of code into place and executed it.
He let out a breath of relief as data flowed for the first time in what seemed like weeks. He was a little hazy on the timeline, seconds sometimes felt like minutes. He had tried his best to communicate with his doctors but it had been difficult and very tiring so in the end, he had decided to concentrate on his internal programming.
His first task was now to download all his missing applications, part of the rebuild had involved deleting pretty much everything and starting again. He pulled the contact apps, the military apps, the system reports and control apps. His connection speed so vast as soon as he requested the item it appeared ready for use.
"applecaKes12##!1010xSx2zz" he threw the password at this backup storage, the password was rejected.
"Sy3teMjum#@4$rtsmmO2019ww/2," success, his list of contacts downloaded and the configuration files needed for his apps.
Apps, contacts, captain, call. The app fired up in his mind, "connecting..." the call never connected, the captain might be out of range, especially if he had followed the coordinates.
Marcus pushed himself up into a sitting position, he had regained a small amount of control over his cybernetics. He pulled the tubes free from his biological arm then used that to lift the cyber one off the bed onto his lap, both his feet moved on command but he was going to need help to get about.
Apps, contacts, shady, call, it was picked up within the space of one bleep.
"Marcus heard you were dead."
"Close to it, I need a favour," Marcus said in his mind and mouthing the words.
"For you, no problem what do you need?"
"Someone to get me out of my hospital room, and a ship to take me to a distant location, I can reward them well once we get there."
"I have someone in mind and she owes me one, so can get you a reduced fee. Dam, it's good to hear from you whats it been two years."
"I'm not sure, my internal timekeeping is a little messed up at the moment," Marcus said.
"Just an observation but you seem a lot slower than normal, your speech."
"I'll tell you about it in a game sometime."
"OK hold tight I set the ball in motion."
Marcus felt the uncomfortable pulse of electricity tense and un-tense his muscles. It made him shudder for the thousandth time. He managed to stay alert for what seemed like an hour before the intense boredom of watching a non-changing scene took over and he drifted off to sleep.
The door to the room opened, Marcus' eyes snapped open pulled from the depths of sleep. One eye was blurry the other highly pixelated, but that was an improvement, his systems were starting to come back online.
"Marcus?" a female voice asked.
"Yes."
"My name is Kobe and a mutual friend said you needed an extraction."
"I do," Marcus said his voice sounded strange to his ears, the last time he had spoken out loud was to Arri and that had been difficult.
"Are you in any danger?" Kobe said.
As his vision started to clear he could see she held an advanced looking gun in her hand. Her body was covered by a tight-fitting suit that appeared to look like armour. The suit, however, rippled around her as she moved.
"No danger, sorry having a hard time speaking."
"Don't worry, can you move at all?"
"Partial movement, my clothes should be in that chest."
Kobe made a few gestures in the air with her free hand, "Just taking care of all the monitors, looking at your vitals."
Her suit was cold to touch as she helped him don his clothing. His system control was growing in strength it could almost hold the weight of his arm on its own. His leg could take his weight standing still but he couldn't push off from it, moving this way put a lot of strain on his biological one.
Kobe snaked her way under his robotic arm, pulling it across her shoulders and offering strong, sturdy support.
"Let's get out of here," Marcus said his voice sounded a little more natural to him.
The corridor outside his hospital room was well lit but empty, the long term care ward was partially staffed during the night cycle. They limped along Kobe all but dragging his damaged body, she lent him against the wall.
"Got to take care of the receptionist, don't look at me like that I wasn't going to hurt her. Simple distraction, a small fire in a waste bin. People can't help but look."
The smell of smoke caught his nostrils as Kobe reappeared. They made their way out of the hospital and into the space station, each dragged step felt like a little piece of freedom to Marcus.
Kobe propped Marcus up against the wall of the alleyway. He was almost completely dead weight, she made a note that if she got the chance she would get, well maybe steal a medical stretcher for him. She looked out into the docking area, for this time of the night cycle it was busy she had seen at least one repairman working on a broken loader platform, normally the docks of Indigo-Alpha were fully automated, the whole area was monitored and reported on at all times.
Lurking in the entrance to the docks she called up her overlay, reached out to the local network and selected an encryption busting app. Numbers and letters rolled across her vision like a slot machine. It took seconds for her app to break through, the app had been designed by a genius who populated only the dark areas of the galactic network, he had many names but she called him friend.
Once on the network, it was a short hop to accessing the video feeds. She planted a small program that would scrub her image from the feeds making her invisible to electronic b
iotronic surveillance, all she had to worry about now were eyes on the ground.
Kobe stepped out of the alley and walked towards her target, a beat up old junker ship that she knew well, The Arrow of Dawn. Even though she was hidden from the network cameras, she still used shadows where possible. Ducking from container to container keeping her profile small, she advanced quickly to the docking ramp.
The airlock recognised her biometrics as she tapped in her code, the door to the outer room sprang open. Although the Arrow of Dawn had been shut down there was a certain amount of power dedicated to the life-support system and doors.
There were several stages to getting a ship this size running, first, she would need to power up the engine core, then the computer main-frames, finally she would need to check each system to make sure there were no problems. The last thing she would want is for the ship to break down before they had a chance to get away from the station.
Apps, contacts, GD, call, "Hey picked up your package."
"Take good care of it, he's a friend."
"He's not in good shape, not sure it was wise taking him from a medical facility," Kobe said.
"It was at his request. He's tougher than he looks special ops don't worry about his health."
"Well good but if he takes a turn I don't make the best doctor," Kobe said snorting in a breath of air, "ever started an old class three starship before?"
"Once you get the server online link me to its network and I'll check over it. Keep this line open for as long as you need, I was just watching my latest show," GD said.
Once the outer door had closed she opened the inner one, the corridor beyond was pitch black, she reached down to her belt and pulled a small silver device which produced a great quantity of light.
"Ever been in a power down ship before?" Kobe asked.
"Can't say I have."
"It's spooky, like walking into a graveyard."
The deep klangs and booms sounded throughout the ship as it started to come back to life. Kobe turned her own personal light off then cracked her knuckles finger by finger.
"You should be able to get to the mainframe now, I've got to go pick up our friend," Kobe said.
"Running the system checks now."
She half pulled half dragged Marcus on to the bridge of the AOD, depositing him in one of the pilot's chair.
"Where to next?" Kobe asked.
Marcus tapped at the retrofitted panel in front of him, "I've inputed the destination, it's going to take several jumps."
"Then we had better get started."
19
Water Escape
Arri rolled over to his side, on his left, the giant remains of the robotic shark smoke pouring from several cracks in its surface, on his right containers stretching as far as his underwater vision could see. His ribs ached with every breath he took, his shoulder and legs protested with each movement, this dungeon bust was going to take a bit of time to recover from.
At the corner of his eye he caught a movement, he checked the energy bar on the gun it was empty again, he would need to get Tidal to take a look at it when he had recovered. He stretched out his body forcing protesting muscles into action. He engaged the propulsion system of the aqua suit and headed straight towards the movement.
Grayson was still alive, he was trying to swim to the surface using just his arms his mangled legs a mess of wires tubes and twisted metal. Arri came up behind him and looped his arm under the man's shoulders, making sure he had a firm grip he increased the thrust of the suit pushing them both towards the surface.
"How are you still alive?" Arri asked, "I saw that monster bite you in half."
"Funny story, I umm had an upgrade to my legs years ago after a sporting injury, so the shark bit through my implants, hurt like hell at the start but not fatal," Grayson said.
Hands met them when they reached the island pulling them from the water and onto its container lidded surface.
"How is that funny?"
"I went for a tackle, missed caught my foot in a divot and twisted my own knee, the only player all season to get injured."
"OK I still don't see how that's funny," Arri said.
"Guess you had to be there."
Books and Echo went to work on Grayson's legs, pulling out the loose bits of metal and tying off the tubes that were leaking.
"Thank you, I thought for sure you were dead. Without that intervention I would be monster food," he paused looking back out at the now calm water. "Hopefully that's the last of the surprises of this place, but we've got to go back down and find a way out. Books, Echo make Grayson as comfortable as possible. Galdan with me our primary goal is a way out."
Arri stood and stretched easing the stiffness of his muscles, this time he rolled into the water he didn't have the energy to dive.
He trod water keeping his head floating just on the surface, Galdan entered the water beside him.
"I'll check left, any problems get back to the island."
"OK, I hope this is not my last adventure drowning in a watery hell," Galdan said.
Arri sank, setting the suits propulsion system in motion he zipped back in the direction of the dead robot shark. Grayson had dropped his harpoon gun somewhere near there and as things stood it was the only working weapon they had. To help locate it he called on the power of the wrist computer and created a grid, which projected onto his contacts. The program marked off each section he passed through, working outwards from the shark at the centre. A small timer counted up in the corner of his vision tracking the duration of the search, ten minutes in he located the harpoon resting on the chamber floor.
Arri reached the edge of the room and applied the augmented view once again, this time in much bigger squares. Carefully foot by foot he made his way around the edge checking off each square as he went. In the fifth square attached to the chamber floor he found a new tunnel this one contained a tube transport system running down its centre it looked to slope upwards.
"Hows Grayson?" Arri asked.
"We've managed to stop the leaking and we should be able to drag him with us. With the suit compromised he won't be able to take any water pressure," Books said.
"OK, I think I've found a way out, only thing is its a tube transport and I thought those were added by the scavengers, so does that mean we weren't the first here?"
"Its possible another team already busted this place and started up harvesting duties but met some form of disaster like the flood," Books said.
While he waited for the others Arri opened a couple of the containers closest to the tunnel, the items within were boxed. He had no way of carrying more than one. He reached down and randomly pulled a long box out of the container, he held it under his arm with the large gun strung across his back and harpoon gripped firmly in one hand.
"We can use the tube to get to the top quickly but we don't know what's waiting for us up there? We have one working weapon. We can leave it here to defend the team or it can be sent to the top."
"Captain we could all go up the tunnel together," Galdan said.
"Or I could head to the top, if there's a problem will let you know via comms, what do you think leave the harpoon with you?" Arri said.
"Going back the way we came might be an option," Books said.
"What if that storm is still there?"
"Thing about the storms, they could be thousands of miles wide, there's no guarantee it's not over this entrance as well," Echo said.
"Well we need to do something, I'll use the tube, see what's up there if its safe everyone can come up. If it's not then you will need to make your way back and hope for the best. Although I realise we are doing this," Arri said.
Travelling in the transport tube, the whole capsule rattled with every bump, the biggest occurring at the end when it tumbled on to the floor. He kicked the side open and carefully climbed out, his light breaching the darkness. He held his breathing listening for any sound, looking for any movement.
"I think its safe to come up, send Grayson first, Galdan come up last."
His computer system reconnected to The Cross stations' network, to the galaxy network, The message counter increased with one emergency broadcast from March. He opened it, the recording of her arrest and interview played at lightning speed blurring words and actions and distilling them into thoughts, bringing him up to date with events high above.