On Galaxy's Edge: Ascendance (7 page)

After a moment’s more consideration, everyone agreed, even Ty. This was, after all, what they lived for. And if they pulled this off, then they stood to make a lot of money; augs sold for huge amounts on the streets, in part because they were so rare, and in part because they could be the difference between life and death. Everyone would be able to retire, at least for a few months until they got bored again.

“Well then, get prepped. We move out in five hours.”

****

The three small shuttles sped out of the cave mouth, briefly illuminating the cave blue as the ion engines flared up, accelerating the ships upward towards the stratosphere. Their speed increased rapidly, until the three black ships, in close convoy, were doing in excess of Mach 4 nearly twenty miles above the planet’s surface. The near-four hundred mile distance to the largest city on the planet was covered in a little less than ten minutes.

Starting their descent, the three ships slowed down dramatically as they neared the city, circling around and coming in low from the north. Only a few metres above the ground now, the ships sped over the barren desert until they reached the first of the buildings that formed the city. They swept in past the spaceport first, on the outskirts, which was almost deserted at this time, and then flew over the endless factories and industrial buildings that surrounded the city, all low on the ground.

Weaving above and between these buildings, the ships then came to the first of the Scrapers, extending up far above them, and glittering slightly in the light from the triple moons. Flying down the grand avenues that separated the Scrapers, the ships passed only a few metres above the heads of the startled pedestrians, most of whom yelled up abuse at the ships after being knocked about in the ships’ wake.

On reaching the central buildings in the city, the three ships slowed down, making a left turn down a perpendicular avenue, finally passing Scraper 8, then 7, then 6, and finally reaching Scraper 5. There, the ships stopped, hovering in the air outside, engines humming slightly as they maintained a constant position. In front of the ships was the sealed-up main entrance of the Scraper - or what used to be the main entrance, in centuries past - with metal coverings now in place.

Those people standing below the hovering ships, staring up in confusion at this strange spectacle, could start to hear a faint whine build up. It sounded to them as if it was coming from the three ships, and those that had a degree of common sense decided to run, to get away from whatever was about to happen next. Those that had experience with weapons would recognise the sounds of laser weapons building up the juice necessary to fire, and these people ran away even faster. They didn’t want to be nearby when the lasers fired.

Then the whining ceased, and was immediately followed by a blinding flash of pure, high-energy, blue light, emitted from the three ships in unison and directed at the metal front of the Scraper.

CHAPTER FOUR

AUGS

“Here comes the wakeup call...” Nero said, firing the high-powered lasers they’d mounted onto the ships.

The panoramic window at the front of the ship darkened slightly, compensating for the blinding flash of light emitted as the laser fired. When the screen returned to normal transparency levels, and the afterglow from the lasers had disappeared, Nero looked out into the Scraper. A hole, wide enough for all three ships to fit through, at a squeeze, had appeared in the metal wall of the building. At the base of the wall was a glowing red pool of molten metal, smoke still rising from it to obscure their view into the building.

Nate’s voice came through over the radio. “Bloody hell, Nero! Why haven’t we done this before?”

Slowly, the three ships maneuvered through the hole, entering the Scraper’s ground floor. Arrayed before them were about thirty scared, frightened individuals, most of whom were collapsed on the ground, still not recovered from the blast. The nearest ones quickly got up when the ships entered the building, though.

With their landing gear extended, the shuttles delicately settled on the polished stone floor, in the space vacated by the building’s residents. “Keep your engines on standby,” Nero ordered over the radio. “Now, is everyone ready for the party?”

Killing the transmission, he opened the ramp at the rear of the ship, leading his team of five people out and into the Scraper’s former entrance hall. Besides some shops around the edges, it appeared that the entire floor was used as a giant atrium, with the ceiling not less than thirty metres above them. In the middle of the atrium, set on a large polished stone plinth, was a giant metal statue. Over twenty metres tall, it depicted a muscular man, dressed in vintage clothing, pointing an old-fashioned laser rifle skywards, as if to fight off some unknown enemy. Little did he know, Nero thought, that we’d be coming from ground level.

Seeing Nate’s and Tal’s teams emerging from their shuttles, Nero signalled to proceed towards the ornate, curved staircase across the atrium, leaving a few men to stay and protect their ships. Before they had gone even a few metres, though, they heard an alarm start to sound in the distance. It increased in volume until it started to hurt their ears, and then the room dimmed, now lit by a yellow light that had started to pulse insistently.

An artificial voice then came over the building’s sound system, loud enough to be heard even over the din of the alarm. “All residents please return to your homes. All residents please return to your homes.”

“Looks like they know we’re here, Nero,” Nate pointed out, with a look at the grand set of stairs across the atrium. Running boots could be seen starting to descend them.

“All right, find some cover around that statue. We’ll be able to out-gun them as long as no one does anything stupid,” Nero ordered, casting a glance at Nate.

The twelve of them ran towards the metal behemoth, crouching behind the plinth it was on, just in time to see the building’s security personnel reach the bottom of the staircase.

“Wait ‘till they get near, then toss a couple of stun grenades out,” Nero said, taking a look above the plinth to see about thirty armed men running towards them. Luckily, he reflected, it didn’t look like they had armour on, and their weapons were more for show than action. They were beautifully designed, but had hardly any heat vents. Unless they were really high-tech weapons, which Nero doubted, they couldn’t be very powerful.

“Now,” he ordered, tossing one stun grenade over himself, and watching as another three grenades followed, sailing over to the group of security personnel. They went off in near unison, each grenade releasing a powerful electrical discharge that incapacitated anyone within a five metre range. Nero prayed that these guards didn’t have any electrical shielding.

Once the discharge had died down, Nero took another look over the plinth. Only five people were still standing, having been outside the incapacitation radius, though they were looking a little dazed. Nero brought up his laser rifle, and looked down the sight. Once his target was locked in the centre of the scope, the gyros in the weapon kicked into action, making sure that the target stayed in the line of fire, almost independent of Nero’s movements. He depressed the trigger, and a blue flash was emitted from the muzzle as the laser weapon was discharged. Four other flashes came from his left as the other guards went down, all with blackened holes punched neatly in their chests.

“Clear,” came Nate’s voice, with just a hint of disappointment in it. “Well they went down without any fight.”

“We’ve still got to get to the augs, Nate,” Col answered. “I’m sure you’ll get to have some fun yet.”

Standing up, and ignoring Nate’s comment, Nero started to head across the remainder of the atrium. Whilst he wasn’t averse to a good fight, he didn’t want unnecessary risks, especially when they still had to find and break into the aug storage unit. Maybe a good firefight on the way out would be more fun, though considering the uncertainties in the building’s security systems, he was really just hoping for a clean exit.

He and his men ran across the empty atrium, now clear of civilians, towards the staircase. It seemed a bit strange to Nero that there were stairs at all, and no lifts, but he supposed the staircase looked more impressive than a wall of lifts, which seemed to be important to whomever had built this place, all those centuries ago.

His thoughts were interrupted when a faint mechanical sound came from ahead, seemingly from the stairs themselves. Glancing left, he saw that the others had heard it too.

“Keep going,” he said, hoping that they’d pass whatever it was.

“Uh, that doesn’t sound good, Nero,” Jerad said.

“I’m sure it’s--” Nero was cut off as two panels in the floor ahead of them disappeared, revealing two gaping black holes. A slight hissing sound emerged from these holes, which had started flashing red around the edges.

“Nero--”

“Just keep going,” Nero told them. As soon as he said that, something began to emerge from the depths of the holes. At first, it looked like two people, maybe aliens of some sort, were rising on platforms out of the depths, except that they were awfully still. Yet as the platforms neared the surface, it became clear that they weren’t humans. They weren’t aliens, either, and nor were they living at all. They were made of metal, and were almost skeletal in appearance, made of only the bare essentials. Nero had never seen a robot before - in fact, he didn’t know of anyone who had ever seen one - but he knew these things in front of him must be robots.

They appeared to activate, the discrete heat vents on their fronts starting to glow a dull orange as they dissipated the heat generated by their mechanics. Raising their right arms, Nero saw that they had laser weaponry built into their limbs. Unlike the weapons the security guards had carried, these weapons looked very powerful indeed.

“Fire!” Nero yelled, ducking to the ground, out of the way of the robots’ lasers. His men didn’t need to be told twice, and instantly twelve powerful laser rifles discharged into the robots, melting some of the metal, but apparently not enough to stop the robots. They returned fire, missing most of Nero’s men, but one wasn't so lucky, taking a hit full on in the stomach. He went down immediately, not to move again.

“Shit,” Nero muttered. He kept firing, and kept hitting the robots, but their weaponry didn’t seem to do much damage. These robots were designed for intense battles.

Nate and the others scattered to the sides of the atrium, ducking and weaving to avoid being hit. Then one of the robots’ weapons hit another of Nero’s men, this time the man standing right next to Talyah. Nero watched as Talyah grabbed a stun grenade from her belt, and hurled it toward the robots in retaliation. Her aim was true, and the grenade landed perfectly between the two robots, going off and covering the robots in blue electrical sparks.

It didn’t work, though. For a second, both robots appeared frozen, but then they recovered, resuming their laser fire. It did give Nero an idea, though. Pressing the communicate button, he shouted into his communicator to reach all his team.

“On my count, I want everyone to toss a stun grenade at those robots, and be ready to charge them with your rifles. On go... three, two, one, now!” Everyone with a spare stun grenade threw them towards the robots. The resultant electrical explosion almost blinded them for a moment, but it appeared to have had the desired effect. The two robots were frozen in place. Nero and the others ran forward, firing as they did so.

At this close range, Nero could see that the armour plating appeared thinnest on the heads, so he focused his fire there, managing to melt a small pool of metal that dripped to the ground. The others were doing the same with the other robot, and just in time. The robots were starting to move again, recovering from the electrical shock. Nero’s robot slowly brought its weapon arm up, pointing towards him, and appeared moments away from firing.

Then the robot stopped, its arm collapsing to hit its side with a clang, as Nero’s rifle finally got through to the core of the robot’s head, frying the circuitry in there.

He stepped back, breathing hard, and saw that Talyah and Jerad had managed the same with the other robot. Both now stood stationary, surrounded by a small pool of molten metal.

“Fuck me, that was a bit close,” Nate said, a grin on his face.

“‘Close’ is one word for it, Nate,” Talyah replied, looking like she had another word in mind.

Nero looked around. It appeared one of the robots had managed to hit another of his team before the electrical discharge, bringing their number down to just nine now.

“Well, let’s hope we don’t meet any more of these guys,” he said, looking back at the menacing figures still stood before them.

“Their last line of defence, was it?” Col asked, a hopefully note in his voice.

“If it was, they’ll be bringing in more men from the surrounding buildings,” Nero replied, already walking towards the staircase once again, hoping that there were no more robots concealed in the floor.

The great staircase split in two, each side curving around to lead onto the floor above. Nero glanced up to where the stairs joined onto the floor above, and didn’t see anyone, or any robot, looking down at them. The group of nine walked up one side, weapons out, boots thumping on the steps, and emerged into a long corridor that stretched across in front of them. Ornate columns stretched from floor to ceiling where the corridor was open and looked down on the staircase. Another corridor stretched out ahead of them, opposite the staircase.

“So which door is it, Nero?” Jerad asked, looking down the long white corridors, and at the multitude of doors leading off of them.

“The information didn’t specify, except that it was on this floor, near the stairs.”

“That’s...”

“A lot of doors to try, yes,” Nero finished for him. “So let’s get looking. My team will take this one,” he said, referring to the corridor in front of them.

“I guess we’ll have a look down here then,” Nate said, looking down the corridor to their right.

As Talyah and Nate ran off with their guys, Nero was left with Col and another person, a woman called Hakai. They walked over to the first door. “Cover me,” Nero said, as he fired his rifle at the locking mechanism, incinerating it and allowing the door to slide open.

Inside, it looked like someone’s home, though it was far larger than any home Nero had seen before. Roughly square in shape, with a couple of doors at the back leading to other rooms, one wall was just a vast holodisplay that showed an image of the city outside. There were also a few elegant items of furniture, and in one corner sat an old man, eyes wide with horror, staring at the intruders.

Nero waved. After a moment, the old man tentatively waved one hand back. Nero chuckled as he backed out of the room. “Next door,” he said.

“This could take some time,” Col muttered as they walked to the next one.

A couple of doors down, they broke into a home that looked the same as the others they’d looked in, but instead of finding a cowering resident, they found a very large alien standing in the centre of the room, arms folded in front of it. It looked like the sort of alien that was used to intimidating others.

“What is the meaning of this?” it demanded as soon as the door opened, speaking with a slightly strange accent.

“We’re searching these rooms. You have a problem with that?” Nero asked, hefting the laser rifle by his side. The alien glanced at it.

“Yes, but obviously I’m not going to do anything about it. I just think it’s pretty indecent to break into our houses, when we leave you alone on your streets.”

“Did you say ‘indecent’?” Nero asked, not quite believing the alien would say that, and also struggling to understand the alien’s accent.

“Yes, we make sure you get enough food and supplies down there, so why do you have to break in here? No one else feels the need to.”

“No one else can. You try your hardest to make sure we’re so preoccupied with finding what little food there is, that we can’t spend the time or energy breaking into places like this for more. I’m special. I’ve got enough food, enough resources, so I can bother you, and I will take whatever I can from you. That’s not indecency, that’s just necessity.”

“Necessity? That’s just greed. You want what you haven’t got, more than what anyone else down there has. You don’t need it. It is, as I said, just indecent.”

“Indecent? What is decency? We don’t have the luxury of deciding what decency is. We just survive, however we can. How dare you suppose that you can judge us? Maybe we should bring you down to our level for a time. Maybe when you’re killing for a mouthful of food, you’ll reconsider what ‘decency’ is.”

The alien, despite having features that were tricky to read, looked as if it was beginning to regret what it was saying, perhaps realising that Nero was the one with the weapon. A fact that Nero helped emphasize by gesturing with the rifle. “Well, maybe you do have a point,” the alien said, shrugging, its shoulders moving in a strange upwards and inwards manner.