Splintered Suns Read online

  Ancil gave the sign to slow down as they drew near the drop-off point. Everyone got themselves ready, coping with weapons and equipment while dressed in the gauzy one-piece suits which Lieutenant-Doctor Ustril had with foresight brought along. With their half-mask hoods they were ideal for keeping out flying dust and grit. Then Ancil shouted, “Hold!” and Pyke halted the shuttle’s descent, allowing everyone to file out and clamber down to the ground as best as they could. Once Dervla and Ancil were gone, Pyke thumbed open the comm link to the Scarabus.

  “Oleg, that’s us on the ground—over to you now.”

  “Okay, Captain—remote systems engaged.”

  Pyke tapped a few buttons on the pilot screen and that was it. Moments later he was out of the hatch, landing slightly awkwardly on the sand then being helped upright by Kref.

  “Some noise, eh, Captain?”

  He was right. At close quarters the howling din of the shuttle’s fanjets was a tearing shriek, but they were clearly doing all he’d asked of them and more. Stirred-up clouds swirled about them, veils of murk that reduced the looming hulk of the ancient wreck to a vague outline while Raven’s transport was completely hidden from view. Which meant that they were, too.

  Oleg’s measured voice spoke over the headset. “Captain, may I advise haste? The fringes of a high-pressure system are moving in faster than previously modelled.”

  “You mean it’s gonna get a bit breezy round these parts?”

  “That’s the gist of it.”

  Pyke switched his headset to the crew’s comm net. “Okay, boys and girls, we’ll have to double-time it—we’ve got breezes incoming!”

  Under cover of the billowing clouds and with the fanjets howling at their backs, they hurried over to the huge, dilapidated hulk and skirted along its flank, persevering at times with soft, foot-trapping sand. During their earlier reconnaissance, Pyke and Ancil had spotted a likely entrance about two-thirds of the way sternwards—its likelihood was sign-posted by the ramp that led up to it and the line of boot marks leading there from Raven’s transport. With Pyke and Kref bringing up the rear, Ancil was not even halfway to the ramp when Oleg’s voice broke through on Pyke’s headset.

  “The wind is picking up, Captain—you must hurry!”

  Pyke decided there was only one solution and bellowed, “Everybody run!—shift yer arses now! Move it!”

  Fearing the worst, the crew sprang forward as one, those with a longer stride (like the Sendrukan Ustril) loping quickly ahead. Both she and Ancil reached the ramp at the same time, the latter grabbing one of her equipment bags as they charged up the slope with Moleg hard on their heels. That was the very moment when a sudden gust blew in from the lightless desert.

  Running and gasping alongside Kref, Pyke actually saw the precise moment that the gust hit, saw the warm dustclouds rise up in swirls as the wedge of colder air rushed in beneath it. It was as if a curtain was swept aside—the dark crouching shape of Raven’s transport was suddenly visible, which could only mean that Pyke’s crew were visible to it. Moleg was racing up the ramp and Pyke was unlimbering his handgun while roaring at Kref to get the hell up there after him. But Kref, that stupid blockhead of an oaf, refused, even as red range-finder beams probed through the haze towards them. In fact, that oversized dunderhead was trying to shield Pyke and clicking off the safeties on the heavy autorifle that looked like a toy in his hands …

  And, right then, as Pyke heard the whine of the flechette turrets spinning up, the shuttle-barge glided in from the darkness, fanjets still shrieking.

  “Better get to cover, Captain!” said Oleg over the headset. “Soon as you’re safe I’ll fly the shuttle out of harms way.”

  They didn’t need to be told twice. Pyke could hear the hammering rattle of flechette and armour-piercing rounds peppering the shuttle’s starboard side as he and Kref scrambled up the ramp to where friendly hands hauled them into sheltering shadows.

  “That’s us,” he gasped to Oleg. “Get it moving!”

  Through a crack in the wreck’s hull plating, Pyke could see the shuttle-barge surge forwards, heading for the dark of the desert, trying to get out of the mini-turrets’ sensor range. But the craft was listing to starboard as it drifted off into the murky night. Moments later the sound of the fanjets cut out and he feared the worst.

  “Oleg?” he muttered. “How bad is it?”

  “Pretty bad, Captain. Starboard suspensors got badly shredded—I’m amazed the aft unit kept functioning as long as it did. I managed to ditch the shuttle high up on a dune about three hundred yards out from your position.”

  “Not much in the way of self-repair on the bucket, is there?” he said.

  “Only for the comms and basic life support, Captain. It’ll take some serious onsite repair, and probably actual new parts.”

  “Or we could just liberate a new one.”

  “Steal, I think, is the word you really mean.”

  “I like the word ‘liberate,’ Oleg. Raven’s been a right royal gouging pain in my neck since some time back, and once I’ve finished kicking her arse halfway around this dustball planet I’m planning to, yes, steal that shiny combat shuttle of hers. So, in the interim, while we’re clouting up a fuss down here, could you see if you can hack into its systems, if that’s at all possible.”

  “See what I can do.”

  “Good lad.”

  While he’d been talking to Oleg, the others had broken out hand torches to see what was around them and to get a sense of their location within the massive wreck. Pyke was sitting where his panicky arrival had dumped him, on an incline of compacted sand and leaning against a mesh-covered bulkhead. This temporary refuge lay between the outer hull and an inner bulkhead barrier—the outer hull was missing many plate sections, a few of which had been used to construct the ramp which sloped up to the rough entrance.

  Ancil, dodging past gaps in the hull, came over and squatted next to him.

  “Did the shuttle make it, Chief? Do we still have a ride home?”

  “’Fraid not, Ans—however, I have taken a liking to Raven’s tasty little runabout.”

  Ancil chuckled. “Yep, lethal defences aside, Chief, it’s certainly a pretty machine. Think we can persuade her to give up the activation codes?”

  “Not a chance, which is why I’ve got Oleg trying to find out if that transport is hackable.”

  “Tough egg to crack, it being Raven’s.”

  Pyke shrugged. “Yeah, but maybe Oleg’s luck will hold better than ours. So, anyway, how are we doing here? Has Ustril picked up Raven’s trail, by any chance?”

  “She’s only just got some of her gear running, Chief, but she does say that we must stay away from the drives and the adjoining compartments. Said something about transdimensional anomalies, how they could really mess up our day!”

  “But nothing on Raven.”

  “She’s still a bit shaken up, Chief, we all are. But she’s still on it, so I’m sure she’ll have something solid soon.”

  “Fine. What about a way further inside this mouldering heap?”

  “There’s an open maintenance hatch a dozen yards along …” Ancil pointed. “Must be how Raven and her crew got inside. It opens on a stairwell with steps leading up and down and a narrow passage branching off. No one’s been through, well, not very far—the downward stairs are busted, drops into an unlit lower deck and there’s some kind of weak light up at the top of the main stairs. That’s all we know so far.”

  Pyke let his suspicion show. “Three routes, and just one is lit?”

  Ancil grinned. “I thought it looked a bit trappy.”

  “Need to check it out, though.” Pyke smiled. “Could be the moment when I get to christen the Jones-Eckley plasma-slugger!”

  “And may the Great Maker have mercy upon whoever’s on the receiving end!”

  With shared laughter, they gathered together the others and Pyke laid out his plan, which he’d thought up roughly thirty seconds earlier. Dervla, Kref, Ustril and Moleg
would move across the landing to the narrow passageway and explore it while Pyke ventured upstairs for a look-see, with Ancil following as backup.

  “Just a second,” said Dervla. “I think it’s clear to everyone that in the event of any unforeseen shenanigans those of us sidelined in that little passage will need something with extra punch to … secure our position, y’know.”

  “Well, yes, maybe so,” Pyke said.

  “Good, so Ancil should lend me that brutal hand-cannon and we’ll be solid.”

  Ancil drew back. “What do you need the Ashbless for when you’ve all got perfectly fine weapons of yer own?”

  “Well, that or you take my place and I’ll be Pyke’s backup.” She gave the captain a sidelong glance. “That work for you?”

  Pyke, knowing there was no way Ancil could win this one, smiled expansively. “Darlin,’ whatever gets the job done!”

  Ancil gave a shrug and a rueful smile as he led the others through the maintenance hatch by torchlight and across the landing to the dark passageway.

  “He was so looking forward to blowing a hole in something or someone,” Pyke murmured as he and Dervla followed the others through and started up the stairs.

  “If our luck holds true to form,” she said, “there’ll be plenty of targets to go round.”

  Stealthily they ascended three flights of cracked and corroded metal steps. Pyke noted the state of the risers and rails and wondered why the non-decay they had noted in the other wrecked section was not apparent here. They slowed as they reached the top and the source of the light, a square window in a closed door. Pyke gestured Dervla to stay back on the last flight, to which she responded with raised eyebrows as she followed him onto the landing.

  “Careful,” he whispered. “Your death-wish is showing!”

  She winked, then pointed at the door. “Think it’s trapped?”

  “Bound to be.” He peered closely. “Sliding door. Could be pressure triggers down the inside frame, or plain old drop recesses along the lintel.”

  “Okay, she’s viciously homicidal and hates your guts. What’s the worst she’d do if she thought you might be on her trail?”

  He gave a rueful smile, trying not to recall too much from long past events. “Blow the stairwell, blow me to bits. That’s her style.”

  “Hmm, overkill, nice.” She frowned. “We never really checked underneath this landing.”

  “Right enough, we didn’t.”

  Sure enough, when they retreated to the next landing down, closer scrutiny with their torches on pin-bright setting revealed a number of blue strips spaced all around the landing’s underside, against the wall, looking for all the world like some kind of structural support.

  Dervla nodded admiringly. “She really, really hates your guts!”

  “Baffles the hell outa me, darlin’—we had our differences and didn’t part on what you’d call good terms, but all this …” He shook his head. “It’s just unhinged.”

  Dervla’s smile was almost pitying. “Don’t care, don’t want to know. All we need to figure out is how we deal with this.”

  “Tiptoe away? Try another route?”

  “I’m willing to bet those other routes are dead ends or similar,” she said. “Besides, she must know we’re here. She’ll know that her transport’s defences were tripped, and since no one else is hunting for the Eye …”

  “Has to be us, I get it.” Pyke felt a rush of anger. “Ach, so we’ll just blow it, then. Let ’em think we got caught in the blast—it’ll give us an edge for a bit.” He hefted the Jones-Eckley plasma slugger. “Set it all off from here, eh?”

  She shook her head. “If those charges are strong enough to blow the entire landing apart, we might get shredded by flying shrapnel. What we need to do is make it look as if someone actually opened that door up there.”

  He frowned. “Got any field line?” He laughed when she held open one side of her jacket and tugged out a small carabiner on some line that unwound from an inner pouch. “Well, of course you have!”

  “I’ll just be a moment,” she said. “Better get onto Ancil and fill him in.”

  Pyke watched her climb light-footed back up to the top landing and start rigging the line, realising that the safest place really was down at the landing where they’d entered. As he descended he let Ancil know what the plan was, finishing off when they came face-to-face at the entrance to the dark passageway. Behind Ancil were green glows, flares that had been placed all the way along the passage. In the emerald radiance, faces looked weird and otherworldly.

  “Green flares?” he said to Ancil. “Green?”

  Before Ancil could reply, Dervla arrived and hurried along the passage to join them, holding the carabiner in her hand.

  “Everyone ready?” she said. “Cover your ears, it’s gonna be loud!”

  With a hand over one of her ears, she held up the trigger line and gave it a good, vigorous tug.

  Silence.

  “Well, that was …”

  A deafening explosion obliterated Pyke’s next few words, or, rather, his motivation for saying them. The shattering violence of the detonation made him close his eyes and physically flinch away as bulkheads shook and the deck quaked underfoot. The massive noise extended into a clanging, crashing sound from the direction of the stairwell. When he opened his eyes there was smoke in the narrow passageway, illuminated by the green flares into shifting hazy veils. Ancil came towards him out of the emerald murk.

  “Cunning,” he said. “Evil and cunning.”

  “What’s that?” Pyke said, coughing.

  “The stairs at the end of this passage go down about three flights, and they were mined!—all went off same time as the one upstairs.”

  “Leaving us with one route into the ship. Those busted steps going down,” Pyke growled. “And you can bet yer last bit-ducat that it’ll lead to a dead end of some kind.” He glanced at Dervla. “What’s it like through there?”

  She’d been peering into the tangle of metal now filling the main landing, and shook her head. “Could be better, but seen worse. Some of the big sections, though, are holding up a lot of the smaller wreckage, and with a bit of heaving and pushing there might be a way round. Hey, Kref!”

  “Sure, Derv, I heard,” said the big Henkayan. “Should be able to move all that a bit—need a hand, though.”

  Many hands made tough work a little less demanding, shoving aside some of the twisted remains of two landings: the collapse of the topmost sent wreckage plunging down onto the lowest, tearing it away from the bulkhead. After their combined efforts enough of a gap was created to allow everyone, even the tallest, to edge round to the broken downward steps and the inky blackness below.

  By torchlight they could see that the stairwell beneath was nearly full of wreckage, too—most of the high bulkhead on the coreward side had burst into the stairwell spilling debris into the gap, a twisted snarl of plating, decking, beams, knotted meshes of cables and pipes and an abundance of unidentifiable junk.

  Moleg had been examining the spot where the first downward flight was missing, rubbing the broken metal supports then sniffing his fingers.

  “Freshly done,” he said. “Raven and her crew demolished this.”

  “Just her style,” Pyke said. “Any way to bridge that gap? In fact, is there any point in getting down there at all?”

  Moleg pulled down over his eyes the goggles that had been resting on his brow and grinned. “Someone’s been down there already, before Raven and her goons arrived.” He pointed down at the next landing, which was half buried in fallen debris. “Something took out the middle section of that landing a while back, but somebody tended to it quite nicely.” He took off the goggles and handed them to Pyke.

  Pyke knew Moleg wouldn’t push something like this if there wasn’t a point, so he put on the goggles and looked at the landing, now illuminated by Moleg’s torch. And just there he could make out two or three spars clustered together and laid across the gap in the landing. H
e laughed.

  “It’s a walkway,” he said, handing back the goggles.

  “It is.”

  “And it must be going somewhere.”

  Moleg nodded. “My guess is that there’s a hatchway on the other side of the landing, behind all that debris, and it leads further into the ship—I mean, no one goes to the trouble of making a walkway that goes nowhere.”

  Pyke laughed. “Smart thinking, ould son. Let’s get cracking.”

  With everyone lending a hand—including Ustril the Sendrukan—they managed to patch together a gantry from sections of railing and lengths of decking. Once it was in position they carefully crossed over, one by one, shuffling down the creaking, sloped gantry to the other end. When Kref and Ustril made their crossings the improvised bridge creaked a little louder both times … but held.

  Pyke was third across, after Kref—he gave the big Henkayan a punch to the upper arm. “Told you, didn’t I? Easier than crossing that acrobat bar on Shephedri Orbital.”

  Kref gave one of those nods where his whole upper body seemed to rock back and forth. “I think Shephedri was worse, Captain—I didn’t have to duck any waiters on ropes here!”

  Just as Moleg suspected, there was a gap behind the debris big enough for everyone to pass through to get to the beams that bridged the gap. And, on the other side, there was indeed an open hatchway.

  Beyond, more lightless corridor. Ancil and Moleg took point, probing the shadows with torchbeams, exposing secrets. More mingled heaps of detritus, the vestiges and powdery residues of rubbish pulverised by the sheer weight of countless years. The corridor ran straight for five paces, turned left, continued for another seven paces before ending at a wall of twisted metal. There was, however, a ladder that went up through a square gap in the ceiling. As they gathered about it, Moleg set up a stopover lamp to brighten the spot.