Chaos Cipher (73 page)

This code is
malicious,
said the AI,
I can’t trace its source, the virus is
polymorphic and disguising itself as directives. It’s utilising my
programming code to hide its origin.

‘
Run new
diagnostic,’ said Ripley, ‘give me full band feedback.’

Ace Ripley
analysed the new data and shook his head in confusion. In the
neurosphere, discriminatory programs shaved off the complicated
codes to make him aware of the other two Stymphalions, his
associates, battling their own viral problems. Estelle Bennett was
caught up in the same nanome wires and cables that almost
snagged
The Deathwind
.

‘
I want
manual access control of the warhead.’

Access
granted, Ace,
you sure you want to
detonate that thing at close range?

‘
You can take
it right?’ he asked, releasing the Warhead beneath the
ship.

I can, but we
need to make some considerable distance.

‘
Full
throttle, Deathwind.’ He ordered.

Roger, retros
at full throttle.

‘
All crew,
stand by for phoenix warhead detonation.’

‘
Make it
quick, sir!’ Estelle came back through the network in a
panic.

The ship’s
engines purred as the retro boosters arrowed them forth, a winding
sound that suddenly ground to a stop.

Bad news Ace,
those things got into my engines,
said
D.W,
I put as much distance as I could
between us and the phoenix, but they’re cutting off
retros.

‘
We at a good
distance?’

I don’t think
so, the damage won’t be superficial.

‘
We can
survive it!’

What choice
do we have, Ace?
Said the ship.
Better hope this works. You’re a gambling man,
right? If we let these things win, we won’t survive. We’ll suffer
the same fate those Adamoss avatars did.

‘
Right,’ said
Ripley, leaning back and shutting his eyes. He set the detonation
key and signalled the Warhead. ‘The electro-magnetic pulsar from
the blast will knock out your systems. How long do you think it
will take you to reboot?’

That depends
on the efficiency of my magnetic shielding,
said D.W.
On a good day, and
presuming my memory banks aren’t scrambled, I’d say about five or
six minutes.

‘
Good luck
Deathwind.’

You too
Commander. Detonation key confirmed - brace yourselves!

And a
burgeoning star was born, swallowing
The
Deathwind
in its expanding blast. Ace
Ripley was plunged into immediate darkness. Power to the Solitaire
Deathwind abruptly deactivated and he groaned as the blast from
outside shook him around in the dark confines of the vessel.
Windows blacked out the radiation, control panels sounded fierce
alarms and the heads-up display blinked with malfunctions. There
was no neurosphere, no AI, no quantic feedback at all, he was
riding the veritable tides of fire and magnetism out from the
epicentre, hoping the fuselage won’t crack as it baked in the heat.
He heard now the tick and pop of metal, the ruptures of the shields
compressing and expanding as he was thrown into spin and the
heads-up display crackled with gamma charges breaking in through
the shields. The temperature started to rise, and Ace Ripley
screamed against the turbulent inertial forces with the wilful
effort of survival.

-55-

K
intz rocked back and forth in the
levitation chair plucking his eyebrow as Alker stood glaring
obstinately through the observation wall at the extent of the
station’s enormous curvature arching up and above and looping
somewhere overhead. A white flare still flashed from the damaged
Cosmo tower near Beta Gate, while repair drones and engineers
worked in the spread of debris circling around the station’s orbit.
Alker watched the moving trams servicing the many sections of the
station sliding in and out of their mag-tubes, the hundreds of
ships swarming local space and the service elevators sliding up and
down the struts from the docking sphere to its surrounding
habitation ring. It all seemed like microscopic clockwork from the
frame of his window. Alker remained reticent, stirring the green
tinted liquid in his brandy glass with a plastic toothpick. The
door slid open and Regallio entered the room with two of his masked
soldiers and ascended the steps to reach Alker’s conservatory
space.

‘
I thought we
had an arrangement?’ said Alker.

Regallio
didn’t respond, he stood firmly and quietly, giving Alker all the
time he needed to express his disappointment and maybe reveal to
Regallio some discretion to his character, yet unknown to
him.

‘
You have no
idea what shit storm you’ve just unleashed.’ Alker drank from the
glass, the warm malachite liquid sent coasting over his tongue, and
returned the tumbler by his waist, rocking what was left of the
liquor in his palm to spin as he spoke with contemplative
solicitude. ‘You have no idea, do you? You should never have let
them depart from the tower. You could have shot them down and
destroyed them. Why didn’t you? Instead you let them velox out of
orbit. And how did they manage that, I thought you shut down your
saltus-carousels?’

‘
They had one
integrated,’ said Anton.

‘
That’s
illegal, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Does this base care for legalities
of any kind? Why didn’t you tell me the starnavis shuttle had an
integrated carousel?’

‘
Why didn’t
you tell me the terrorist was an Olympian back when I first asked
you?’

‘
I didn’t
want to worry you.’

‘
You didn’t
worry me, Mr Alker. You misinformed me. Now I have the Royal
Twilight owners barking down my ear and a handful of people dead
while serving your bodyguard and staff general. I suppose he knew
what he was dealing with?’

‘
JD O’ Three
knew exactly what he was dealing with, yes. And he was prepared to
lead your men. Sadly, killing Olympians is not an easy
feat.’

‘
The
information was on a need to know basis,’ said Kintz, relaxing in
his chair ‘and you didn’t need to know.’

‘
I did need
to know!’ Regallio stated rubbernecking shoulder-way, not giving
Kintz the respect of a frontal confrontation, ‘did you see the
surveillance recordings?’ and he turned his head back to Alker,
‘did you see what he did to those soldiers? That monster tore them
apart. Even armed to the teeth, they didn’t stand a chance. And as
for my Eastern Cosmo tower, well…I sense there’s much more to that
story too. Initially, it looked like an accident. In fact,
The Griffin’s Claw
gained almost three mega tons of mass out of nowhere. We’re
guessing Obsiduranium was involved.’

‘
We can’t let
this threat reach Earth.’ Alker stated.

‘
Earth is not
my home. Our business is concluded,’ Regallio digressed after a few
moments. ‘You may leave, when you’re ready.’

And as
Regallio headed for the door, Alker told him that he hopes nobody
else lives to regret this. ‘I’d have thought you may have been
interested in the capture of this degenerate, if anything to bring
him to justice after destroying your hotel, your Cosmo tower and
the men, you so dutifully feel indebted to after they were
K.I.A.’

Regallio
nodded. ‘I could equally say the same for your men. Wherever he
was, so were your sweeper RIG. They were continually using
excessive firepower on my station like petulant fucking
gun-slingers on a shooting range. You’ve overstayed your welcome,
Mr Alker. Now, leave.’

Regallio
departed, leading the two soldiers back into the corridor and the
door closed behind them. Alker scrunched his face bitterly and
finished his brandy, tossing the glass over his shoulder, which hit
the ground with a dull thud and rolled away somewhere behind
him.

‘
What now?’
Kintz asked.

And he could
have said anything but he didn’t.

I.O.W, he
wasn’t sure what now.

And then
sirens began to ring throughout the entire station. Outside the
habitat, a long array of crimson light pulsed around the perimeter
centrifuge, and screens displayed Anton Regallio’s emergency
recorded message.

‘
Omicron
citizens, this is an emergency,’ his voice
filtered through every room on the station. ‘Proceed to evacuate
the station via emergency launch tubes and the axel docking sphere.
A code three, one, one, nine emergency is in effect. This is not a
drill. All hands abandon
Omicron
,
immediately.’

Alker stared
in horror as explosions pulsed through space, micro detonations
popping like distant winks of light in the turning sky. The message
replayed in three minute intervals, and Kintz was already making
pace for the exits.

-56-

A
nton heard his pre-recorded message
playing on the displays, repeating itself over and over. He hurried
through walkway conduits, following a pre-programmed breadcrumb
hologram that would lead to his escape shuttle.

‘
Any news
from Archimedes station?’ he asked one of his security officers who
marched with him.

‘
Negative,
sir,’ he responded. ‘We’ve just been told there are thermo-nuclear
explosions a couple thousand clicks away and they’re getting
closer.’

‘
Jesus,’
Anton said, reserving his panic. ‘Nuclear?’

‘
Phoenix
Warheads, we think.’

‘
Keep the
emergency alarms running; make sure the drones, holograms and Mechs
are working to get people out of here.’

‘
Yes
sir.’

‘
Mister
Regallio,’ one of the women shouted, marching up fast to the front
of the line. ‘Shield of Spheres sent a message, sir.’

‘
Who?’

‘
Chief
Claudia Noble says she knows the men responsible for
liberating
The Griffin’s
Claw
.’

Anton’s eyes
lit with interest, his countenance turning from dour to
malignant.

‘
Patch her
through my oculars,’ he said. A moment later the Shield of Spheres
insignia appeared on the ocular display in Anton’s eyes, a limited
ghostly field that appeared semi-transparent and carried with it
various information about the message downlink speed.

‘
Who the hell
are you people?’ he said. ‘Was it you who did that to my
station?’

‘
It was,’ The
Chief came clear, the symbol circling where normally an image of
her avatar would appear. ‘But this one isn’t us. There’s something
heading your way Anton. I have just received an update from Wing
Commander, Ace Ripley of the Plato Wing. What we’re dealing with,
is very advanced technology. Most likely, it wants the station for
some reason.’

‘
What
reason?’ Anton barked.

‘
Do not wait
around to find out, sir. Get as many out of there as you can. We’re
holding them back but our efforts to stop these things have been so
far nugatory.’

And Anton was
shouting in a blind rage at the woman where a symbol for the
company logo spun in the avatar space like a digital medal.
Doggedly, he pushed by others on the same route, pushing people out
of his direction as he made haste with his armed marching security
team. With the yammering heads he grimaced at spiritualists humming
and singing about the presence of God come from the eternal
darkness beyond the habitation field. He heard the ring of bicycle
bells as cyclists raced along the cycle lane on his left, shooting
into the up-curving walkway to their assigned emergency port. He
heard the yells from behind as Alker and Kintz hurried after
them.

‘
What is all
this?’ Alker demanded.

‘
Didn’t you
hear?’ Anton growled, irritated that the reality still hadn’t sunk
in. ‘Evacuation, don’t you get it? This place is going to
hell.’

‘
What’s going
on?’ Alker tried. ‘I don’t see what is wrong. Did something happen
to the Cosmo tower? I thought all that was under
control.’

‘
It was,’
said Anton, leading them down a new isle. ‘There’s another danger
fast approaching.’

‘
What
danger?’ his voice a passing moment as a whistling sound echoed and
stirred, the sound of voices screaming in unison, each voice
joining the moment their horror was realised, like a Mexican wave.
Alker craned his head and gaped in astonishment. Anton Regallio
could only do the same, staring with a dumbfounded look beset on
his face, as the axel sphere split apart like a flaming rose
budding from a basalt shell. The black and white alloys sprung
apart slowly, widening in a beautiful and dazzling orb. Initial
shockwaves burst out in dust, pulsing against the habitation and
sending dull vibrations through the station’s ringular hull, and
the growing scarlet petals of fire reached out faster, chasing the
shockwaves. The Xenotech leader raced from the blast, its long
mechanical tentacles trailing far behind it as it vanished into
space. Fragments from the axel sphere smashed into the
Omicron’s
centrifuge
habitation as it continued to wheel, gradually grinding itself into
pieces. Another Xenotech crashed through the habitation ring,
obliterating shield barricades and elevation spokes. The
destructive machines left the Jovian orbit littered with burning
debris, vying for the remote sunlight beyond the field of chaos.
The station’s destruction would leave no survivors save those who
evacuated before the impact. And for the few fortunate souls who
did, their voyage home would be one of terror, as each became
enslaved in the cybernetic tendrils of the Xenotech
visitors.