Burnt Worlds (49 page)

In front of them, the far wall was a massive set of displays.
 
One large screen was surrounded by dozens of smaller ones, most of which were dark.

The huge central screen was filled with a dim jumble of shapes and characters, twitching rapidly.
 
Periodically, it would flash a few moments of a tactical display depicting a space battle.
 
Lines and circles showed the locations and movements of the hundreds of combatants, with small text-filled boxes next to each.

“There it is,” said Perkins.
 
“No, wait… there it is again, sir.
 
Do you see it?”

“I see it.
 
Hand me your datapad.”

The marine quickly retrieved his pad and handed it to the Captain, who poked at it as he began to climb the stairs into the higher rows behind the entrance.
 
Amoroso, weapon raised, quickly went up the stairs ahead of the Captain.

“I’m guessing,” said Dillon, “that the bosses sat at the top—”

“Do none of you hear that?” asked Amba suddenly.

Dillon stopped, turning to look at her.
 
“Hear what?”

She shook her head.
 
“Do your suits not pick up external sounds?
 
Something is playing the radio traffic from that battle.
 
It’s in your language.”

“External mikes, everyone,” said the Captain, tapping his wrist console.
 

It was quiet, but he could hear it.
 
The rapid, clipped staccato of tactical radio chatter.
 
Dozens of different voices, with different accents, quickly speaking after each other.

“...lost power and are adrift.
 
Bonaventure
, please make positive-zed to avoid, over.”

“U.S. Third Battle Squadron, remaining units merge with First Cruiser Division.
 
Flag transferring to
St. Louis
, out.”

“
Vanguard
to fleet:
 
we are coming about to starboard, to open our forward arc.
 
Stand by for FTL torpedoes.
 
Vanguard
out.”

Perkins looked at the Captain.
 
“FTL torpedoes, sir?
 
They gave that monster faster-than-light torpedoes?
 
I thought those were banned after that thing happened to Pluto...”

Dillon was already moving higher up the steps, quickly looking at each row of consoles as he climbed.
 
“Negative, Perky.
 
Only banned for fighting other humans.”

“Holy shit,” breathed Amoroso, looking up at the giant display.
 
“
Vanguard
just one-shotted a cylinder.
 
One shot, whomp, cylinder’s gone.”

“Yeah,” said Dillon.
 
“Except she only would’ve sailed with a half-dozen torpedoes.
 
They’re still screwed unless we—”

“Listen!” snapped the Tassali.
 
Everyone froze, straining to hear.

“Affirmative,” said the faint voice.
 
“we’ve had additional transmissions from
Borealis
.
 
She’s through the gate, at the homeworld of these things, dodging a couple of them.
 
They’ve got a team on the surface, trying to shut these things down.
 
Over.”

“Understood.
 
Godspeed to them.
 
Lincoln
out.”

Dillon shook his head.
 
“Damn it, we don’t know if this is a real-time feed from the cylinders themselves, or if this radio traffic is five minutes old.
 
The fight could already be over.”
 
He started to run up the stairs, Amoroso taking off ahead of him.

“Here,” he said, arriving at the top row of consoles.

A half-dozen chairs were pulled into a semicircle around the large central console.
 
On the chair and on the floor nearby were the metallic remains of uniforms and insignia.
 
Several guns lay nearby; on the wide central console was a collection of empty cups.

“Huh,” said Dillon.
 
“A group of them decided to go out together.”
 
He carefully picked his way between the chairs.
 
“I kinda get it.”

Mouthing a silent apology to the dead, he gently pushed the high-backed centre chair out of the way, its metallic uniform fragments falling to the floor.
 
While the other three gathered around him, Dillon stepped up to the wide console and began to examine it.

In addition to the massive displays on the far wall of the room, the console had its own displays:
 
a large central one that flickered intermittently, plus two smaller ones on each side of it.
 
One showed text, one showed columns of data, and the other two were dark.

“Amoroso, get out your datapad.
 
See if it can translate the one with the columns.

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Tassali, the big middle display is showing something, but the flickering is too brief to make out.
 
See if your datapad can record it and show us whatever the image is.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Perkins, keep an eye on the big wall displays.
 
Let us know if anything interesting is going on.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Dillon held the datapad toward the small text display, and waited while it worked at translating it.

“Sir,” said Perkins.
 
“That one tactical display,” he said, pointing to the upper left of the room, “I think it’s tracking the
Borealis
.
 
A single ship, flying like mad around the planet, with two cylinders chasing it.”

“Okay, Atwell and the Chief are driving.
 
They can keep ahead of the cylinders.
 
They’ll have to play hide-and-seek until we get this shut down.”

Amoroso turned his head to look at the Captain.
 
“Sir, I have these columns translated.”

Dillon leaned to look over the marine’s shoulder at his datapad.
 
He blinked as the console’s large central screen flickered, a single brilliant burst of an image too brief to make out.

“Here, sir,” said Amoroso.
 
“First column is world name, second is population.
 
All zeroes.
 
The third one is titled ‘Vault’, and most of them are sort of checked off.”

The Captain stared at the monitor.
 
“So… they were tracking their colonies as their populations crashed, and marking off the ones where they’d built arks like the ones we saw.”

“Aye, sir.
 
Looks like it.”

Dillon looked at the empty chairs behind them.
 
“So, it’s save what you can, tidy up the loose ends, then a toast to each other and bullets to the head.
 
Is that how a civilisation ends?”

The Tassali didn’t look up from her datapad.
 
“Once all hope is gone, that is all there is left:
 
to try to be dignified about it.”

Amoroso pointed at the small screen.
 
“Look, sir.
 
Not just planets.
 
The list includes a half-dozen colony ships.
 
All presumed lost, it says, but still…”

Dillon’s datapad chirped at him, and he looked down at it.
 
“Okay,” he said, his voice energetic.
 
“This is excellent.
 
The text here is about the cylinder peoples’ automated defences being online.
 
So, if I poke this…”

He reached out a gloved hand, one finger aiming at the floating display in front of him.
 
As his finger touched the image, the display turned blue with new text across it.
 
He looked back down at his datapad.
 
“Locked out?” he said.
 
He poked at the console again, but the same blue image reappeared.
 
“Locked out,” he repeated.
 
“Control transferred.”
 
He looked up at the large displays on the far wall.
 
“Control transferred?
 
To who?
 
To where?”

“Another planet, sir?” asked Perkins.
 
“We’d need to find out where, and then—”

“To him,” said Amba.
 
She held up her datapad for them all to see.
 
“This is the image that
 
is flickering on the large screen.”

On the datapad was an image of a small room.
 
An empty chair faced the camera, and the floor and walls behind it were covered in small alien writing.
 
In the far corner of the room lay a body, a humanoid, curled up on the floor.

“Oh my god,” said Amoroso.
 
“It’s—”

“Sir,” interrupted Perkins.
 
“It’s a body, sir.
 
A body.
 
There aren’t any bodies anywhere else.”

Dillon looked up at Amba, whose blue eyes were wide.
 
“No plague,” she whispered.
 
“This person survived.
 
They were safe from the plague, and they knew it.”

The Captain looked at the high-backed command chair, and its fragments of empty uniform.
 
“So they transferred the command of their entire civilisation to that person, then… they all died.”

“He watched his civilisation die, Captain.
 
Alone.”

Dillon shook his head, his breath heavy and steaming inside his helmet.
 
“Okay,” he said.
 
“We can’t be sentimental right now.
 
Let’s all shake this off, and keep moving.
 
Where is this person they gave control to?”

“Somewhere safe from the plague, sir?” offered Perkins.
 
“Somewhere sealed up?”

“A clean room,” said Amoroso.
 
“Like in a lab?”

The Captain’s eyes lit up.
 
“You mean,” he said, excitement growing in his voice, “like a science lab?”

Perkins’ voice was unusually loud.
 
“Sir!
 
Back where we came in!
 
There was another corridor, to a science area!”

Dillon smiled.
 
“Perkins, Amoroso, lead the way.
 
Let’s move!”

They thundered down the hallway toward the science area, stepping sideways through two wide-open airtight doors, into a small foyer with desks and security stations.
 
Beyond it, the room opened into a vast cavern.

As big as a sports stadium, the cavern was filled with rows of glass-walled laboratories.
 
Each contained research computers and equipment, and through the glass walls they could see the next laboratory beyond, and the next beyond that.
 
Hundreds of laboratories, all of different sizes and heights.
 
Their eyes were caught by movement; in some of the laboratories there were screens that flickered, or robotic equipment that moved endlessly back and forth, or just sat in place, twitching feebly.

“Well,” said Dillon.
 
“They took their science seriously.”

“Probably researching weapons to use against the Horlan,” said Amoroso.

“Or a cure to the plague…” said the Tassali,
 
“…once they realised what was happening.
 
But once it went active, their time was limited.”

“Okay,” said the Captain.
 
“Look, we know what the clean room looks like:
 
white walls with writing on them, and a body.
 
These rooms all have transparent sides, so I doubt it’s any of them.”
 
He gestured to the left and right.
 
“Let’s split up and quickly look around.
 
Everyone make sure you can see everyone else at all times.
 
Go.”

Perkins took off along the cavern wall to the left; Amoroso went to the right.
 
Dillon and Amba ran ahead, separating as they moved down different rows of laboratory rooms.

Glancing into the labs to his left and right, Dillon saw room after room filled with robotic equipment, computer stations and other strange devices, as well as more mundane collections of flasks and tubes.
 
Most of the labs were sealed, the piles of clothing on the floor showing where the scientist had worked until they died.
 
Apart from a few chairs and scattered pieces of equipment, the open hallways between the labs were mostly empty, making it possible for him to move quickly.
 
He paused, looking to make sure he could see the others.
 
Amoroso and Perkins were still following the cavern’s stone outer walls, and the Tassali was several hallways over from him, moving from room to room.
 
He looked up, at the catwalks surrounding the higher levels, giving access to the tops of multi-level laboratories and other, smaller labs built up near the ceiling.

“Sir!” cried Amoroso.
 
“Over here, sir!”

Dillon spun around to his right, his eyes finding Amoroso over by the cavern wall, waving and jumping.
 
The Captain took off at a run, dodging chairs and skidding around corners until he was at the cavern wall next to the marine.

A massive round door was set into the wall.
 
Through its small window, they could see it was made of metal half a metre thick.
 
Amoroso tapped on the glass.
 
“In here, sir.”

Dillon stood on tiptoe to look through the window.
 
On the other side, in a cylindrical room, was a small bank of computer consoles.
 
Beyond that was a second round metal door.
 
Through the second door's window he could barely make out while walls covered in faint writing.
 
“God damn,” he said.
 
“Good eye, Amoroso.
 
You’re hired.”