Origins (37 page)

I couldn't see it, but I knew that the Arkonus Abyss had activated.

Kyung raised a hand to her face, stumbled back from the control bank.

Shard control consoles rose from the deck, following assembly routines that had been long dormant. Vibrations spread through the artificial ground. The entire chamber quaked. Lesser components of the temple broke off, chunks of the ceiling raining down on us. Directorate troops darted to and fro, using the improved mobility of their exo-suits to escape the rockfall.

“Here we fucking go, man!” Williams yelled over his external speakers. His words sat uneasily with the tone of his voice: manic, verging on terror. “This is the
shit
!”

The roof split apart. Metal ground against metal, sending nerve-jangling echoes around the shafts. The deck beneath me was rising up, moving faster and faster. The platform on which Kyung had stood, together with her entourage, moved away from us – leaving Williams and me.

The structure rose for several seconds, like an elevator in a shaft, then the process stopped with a jolt. We were on the surface of Devonia, among the raised elements of the Maze. The sky was visible now, a billowing sheet of cloud cover, black and terrible, stretching into infinity. Searing beams of light speared the sky.

I swallowed back fear of failure: the idea that the universe was going to end on my watch…
How long will it take for the
Revenant
to get here?
I asked myself.

There was a terrible grandeur to what we were witnessing, and even Williams paused to take it in. The landscape around us had warped and the Maze was pocked with numerous raised platforms like that Williams and I found ourselves on. Each edifice was a hundred or so metres above the highest points of the canyons, too far for even an armoured simulant to survive the drop.

“She's done it!” Williams jeered. “This is going to end what you started a long, long time ago—”

His mech was crackling with blue energy, sending off sheets of electrical feedback. He fought to control the machine as it was subverted by Shard machine-code.

“Damn it!” he yelped.

The manipulator claw jerked open and dropped me. The platform beneath us rocked, and the Spider – Williams still struggling to control the rebellious mech – stumbled away from me. I landed on my feet. My armour was experiencing the same difficulty, but I had the strength to correct and control it. I shook my neck, released from the agony that Williams had caused.

I couldn't leave without seeing to him, without finishing him for real. I raised my right arm – extended it to arm the flamethrower – but bright warning lights flashed over my wrist-comp. The armour plating around the weapon was deformed, smashed out of shape. Williams must've damaged it in the temple.

He saw my reaction as well. Stomped towards me. I backed away. A blistering wind, powerful enough to shake even my Ares armour, scoured over me and through the Maze.

The entire weight of the Spider collided with me, and I hit one of the Shard consoles. It crumbled beneath me, but slowed my progress: I skidded to a halt mere metres from the edge of the platform. The chest panel of my armour was crumpled, and the collision was strong enough to knock the air from my lungs.

The Shard control console immediately began to repair itself. It rippled with energy as it regenerated, glyphs lighting along the various panels—

The Reapers.

I saw them from the edge of my eye: saw flickers of energy playing over them. They were still, not activated, but I sensed something about them. Williams clumsily circled me, brushing so damned close to the dark metal machines…

I thought fast.

Williams was gaining speed now, crossing the platform again—

I rolled sideways. Grappled with my plasma pistol, unholstered it—

—Williams swivelled, his face a mask of hate inside the machine cockpit, fingers braced on the firing studs of his assault cannon—

“Too slow, old man!” he shouted.

—I fired the plasma pistol at the nearest platform—

It hit the Reaper statue full on. Williams' leering face remained fixed, unable to comprehend anything other than my destruction. The Reaper began to ripple. Williams saw the motion too, and turned to face the activating machine.

Suddenly, there was a bigger threat out here than me. A strand of shadow suddenly shot from the nearest pedestal. Wrapped around one of the Spider's legs.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he screamed at me.

The Spider stomped to get free. Servos whined in protest.

First one, then two, then three shadows were on him. Black metal wrapped around the mech's legs, body, torso. For their size, the Reapers were immensely strong. Armour plating deformed, then ruptured, as force was applied to it.

Williams struggled with his assault cannon, tried to aim it at me. Rounds haphazardly stitched the area, impotent against the Shard machines.

I stood, watched the things taking him apart.

“I am—” I started.

“Let me guess,” Williams roared, his speakers at maximum amplification. When he spoke, spittle lined the inside of the mech's canopy. “I am Lazarus?”

He raised his right arm – the mech responding in kind. There was a flamethrower attached to it, the pilot light already lit. He punched the firing stud: ignited the air in a plume of white flame. The nearest Reaper was consumed by fire, but that didn't stop it.

The Spider was crippled. It collapsed sideways, torn apart by a flurry of Reaper stabs and slashes. The pilot cabin, set into the torso, was being consumed by a mass of black metal. Any thought that Williams was safe inside was quickly dispelled. The fracture that Mason had caused with her mono-sword expanded, and the black plague began to seep inside.

The Creep had found another organic target.

“And you are dead,” I completed.

The mech suit vanished beneath the tide of roiling shadow, and Captain Williams was finally finished.

The nearest shadow advanced on me, and I readied for an attack from the Reapers. But it never came. Their work done, I watched as they simply dissolved. The living metal just crumbled, was rapidly thrown to the wind. They became the nanophage: the Creep that was engulfing Devonia. All aspects of the Shard machine, working towards the same goal.

I turned, activated my EVA thruster pack.

Out there, on the horizon, was a titan-sized structure: something so big that it almost touched the sky. A beam of light poured from the flattened tip.

Kyung is up there.

Even if I couldn't stop her, I was going to die trying.

Come on, come on!
I urged myself.
I have to stop that beacon.

The Krell were everywhere. The Shard were here to destroy their very habitat: there was no point in retreating, in trying to defend against the onslaught. They poured from the coral hives, from the destroyed trees. Bounded across the dead jungle.

I joined them, bouncing onwards with my battle-suit's enhanced-mobility pack firing regularly: making speed on the platform. Soon, a hundred Krell were at my back. Racing as a tide, as a bloody-minded swarm lurching up the side of the structure: crushing each other in a collective wish to reach the summit. As many Krell bodies were strewn across the jungle floor as consumed by the Shard swarm.

I looked up at the immense distance I had to clear. The range-finder on my wrist-comp – unreliable, but the best guess I had in the circumstances – suggested that the structure was already a kilometre tall, and still rising. I was never going to make it using my thruster.

Then I looked back at the Krell, at the seething mass of alien bodies moving up the side of the structure.

“I don't have a choice,” I declared to myself.

I vaulted up the side of the structure, and clambered on top of the Krell assault force, joining them in the attack. If I could reach the summit, I could stop the beacon. That was the source of the transmission into Shard Space. If I could silence it, maybe I could stop this.

The Krell numbers swelled with each second. The tsunami we'd encountered in the swamp? That was nothing compared to the number of bodies gathered at the foot of the platform. Soon there were thousands of them, clambering over each other, clawing up the smooth black sides of the structure. Bodies on bodies, they were slowly but surely reaching the top. Already, some were collapsing back down to the jungle floor. Already, more were struggling to get up there. When the black tide reached them – wracked their organic bodies with phage, consumed them with shadow – more took their place.

The Krell were in a rabid state. They barely noticed me, and took no hostile action against me at all. I climbed with them, firing my thruster in short bursts, using the strength-augmentation of the Ares suit to vertically clear the distance.

I reached the tip of the Krell's attack force. The xenos there were ragged, skeletal shapes: almost completely scoured by the Shard Creep. The air at the peak was thick with nanotech; the Krell warriors were stripped rapidly, and many fell from their position in the column. I grappled onto some, but their strength was waning. More and more, I was relying on the thruster pack in my suit.

Don't look down
, I insisted, as I hauled myself over the lip of the platform.

The world around me had irrevocably changed. The sky was a bitter green glow now, the underside of the clouds skated with fire. Buffeted by winds that bore ash and phage, I stood on the edge of the structure: surveyed the dead world that had been Devonia. There were several black structures, just like the one that I was standing on, now pocking the surface of the planet. Enormous black edifices, cast of shadow, each flickering with pent-up energy.

Director-Admiral Kyung stood in front of a control console, the Shard Key in her hands, in the centre of the platform. Surrounded by a dozen or so Directorate Swords, weapons trained on the platform edges.

As I saw Kyung's ravaged condition, questions fired through my tired mind.
What did the Shard think of her?
I wondered. She was a thing both woman and machine – a cyborg entity. Organic, to be consumed, but machine, to be assimilated. She would be forever linked to the
Shanghai Remembered
. To me, the practice of mind-slaving a captain and her ship sounded despicable and inhumane, but the results spoke for themselves. She was the ship, and the ship was her. Even down on the surface, she was no doubt in regular comms with the
Shanghai
.

I wondered what state the
Shanghai
was in now. Was the ship's AI feeling her pain, struggling to interpret a plethora of new data-streams that no human mind should ever endure?

The camo-field projected by Kyung's ghost-plate had malfunctioned, and still broadcast myriad Shard symbology, glowing white-hot as though she had been branded all over. Her face-plate was damaged too, a nasty fracture webbing the plasglass, turning the plate transparent.

I unholstered my plasma pistol. Stalked towards her, close enough that I could see the hideous mess of her face. The lightshow under her skin had turned black, throbbing with new life, a crawling poison. Her lips were twisted into a grim smile; a bitter expression that suggested she had accepted that she wouldn't be getting out of this alive.

“I have done my task,” she said. Her voice was distorted, just wrong. “It is finished.”

I'd so far escaped discovery by the Directorate; this was my only chance. I aimed the plasma pistol at Kyung. My own suit was so badly damaged that I suspected I would end up the same way: consumed by the Shard Creep.

“We're all dead,” I said, broadcasting over my battle-suit speakers. “But you're not taking her with you.”

Elena.
If all had gone to plan, she was in orbit around Devonia right now, planning our escape. But there could be no life for her if the
Revenant
broke through, if the Shard were allowed to spread their poisonous technology across the galaxy again—

The Directorate bodyguards closed around us, but with hesitancy. Laser sights were aimed at me, weapons trained in my direction. I flagged the Sword commandos: read their armaments and intentions. Heavy carbines. Wearing hard-suits with full exo outlays. Respirators, equipped for hostile environment ops: sealed, currently immune to the Creep. A wave of anxiety seemed to emanate from her troopers, although Kyung was oblivious.
They're scared of her.

“I killed Williams,” I said. Readied my plasma pistol, began to think about how best to do this. “He got what he deserved.”

“No matter. His job was done.”

When she spoke, her words resonated from the world around us: not from the twisted physical form in front of me.

I nodded at the nearest trooper. Said in Standard, “She tell you that you were going to be dying down here?”

The Sword looked back impassively. His or her helmet was mirrored, only revealing the burning horizon of Devonia. But he didn't shoot, and that had to be something.

“You see now why we had to do this?” Kyung asked. “Why I
needed
to do this?”

“I don't much care,” I said. “Unless you close that Gate, you'll have the blood of billions on your hands.”

“It's too late for that,” she said.

“No, it isn't.”

Kyung's face was suddenly almost aflame with activity. The tracery of subdermal electronics flashed incandescently. She hunched over; looked like she might be sick.

One of the nearest soldiers lowered his rifle. For all their discipline, they were losing the will to fight. I couldn't say that I blamed them. They weren't sure about this.

“We can stop this,” I said.

“We cannot be stopped,” boomed the voice that was at once Kyung's but also something else: something that I had heard before.
Machine-code.
The Reaper's voice; the thing that had spoken to me on the Damascus Artefact. She was acting as a conduit for the Machine-Mind, for the Shard.

Shit.
This was first contact. This was really happening.

The Arkonus Abyss blazed with new light overhead. The only functional sensor-suite left on my Ares suit began to chime with warnings. I was being saturated with radiation; enough that even the battle-suit was insufficient protection.

“What do you want with us?” I asked.

“This is our empire,” Kyung said. “We are the Singularity.”

The fracture in her face-plate had grown. From a hairline crack, it was now clearly visible. The woman inside the hard-suit had begun to look frightened, terror creeping across her features.

“If there is anything of Kyung left,” I said, “know that the Directorate wouldn't want this. There is no arms race here; there is no technology to be salvaged. There's only death.”

I spread my arm out across the surface of Devonia, to encompass the dying world around me.

“We can use them,” a voice implored, somewhat meekly. It sounded an awful lot like Kyung, fighting for escape with whatever was now occupying her armour. “They can be the ultimate ally!”

“Against who, Kyung? There won't be anyone left.”

“I… I didn't fail at Damascus!” she implored. “Doing this – it will make everything right! I cannot leave here in failure, not again…”

“We have to stop this!” I yelled. Brought my plasma pistol up, aimed at the Shard console in front of her.

The commandos made their decision. Twelve rifles aimed at me: with my null-shield down, even in a battle-suit they could take me.

“It's too late,” Kyung whispered, as she was consumed by the black metal: as she became whatever the Shard really were. Hesitation fled across what remained of her eyes, so fast that I almost missed it. “They are already here.”

I fired.

The Kyung-thing moved faster than the real Kyung ever could.

She instantly shifted sideways, covered the console and the Key embedded into it. Caught the volley of plasma pulses that coursed the platform. I kept shooting, and a pulse hit her helmet. Her face-plate exploded outwards. The result wasn't what I was expecting: the woman staggered backwards but remained standing. Black mercury lapped at the remains of her hard-suit. She was changing—

Sim-fast, I dodged into cover, behind the nearest Shard structure.

Gunfire chased me, and hard rounds split the air, bouncing off the obsidian ground, but it was not directed at me. The Directorate Swords were firing on what Kyung had become. Their dedication had been sufficiently shaken that they would betray Kyung completely.
Crack-crack
, the rifles fired. One of the Swords hit Kyung, punched another hole through her hard-suit—

Kyung stumbled. Hands to her face. There was liquid pouring from her helmet. The stuff was also erupting from every seam of her suit, I realised, and enveloping the armour. Where the armour breached, wet metal tendrils lashed free.

Kyung rolled over. More rounds pierced her suit.

The Creep had got into her armour, had compromised her life support. Maybe she was especially prone to the contagion – being a machine-hybrid – or perhaps it was one of a hundred other possibilities. The reality was that a Reaper was birthing on the platform top – forming from the remains of Admiral Kyung.

More Directorate guns hit the body. The living metal sprayed, superheated, but instantly reformed. It threw out a spike of mercury in the direction of a Sword – effortlessly spearing the commando and tossing the corpse away, before the soldier had even considered responding – and circled another Shard structure.

The Shard control console was still operating. I could
feel
the Machine-Mind traversing Shard Space, moving to Devonia…

Then I saw them.

Nightmare-quiet things.

The Krell.

One by one, tertiary-forms and primary-forms were clambering onto the platform. They were wraiths: bodies destroyed by the Creep, bio-armour plating flapping wildly in the wind. Individually, they were weakened and dying – such easy prey. But they were not individual.

Krell poured onto the platform, clambering over each other. A leader-form led the assault – had fared better from the storm than its brethren – and clutched at the dead and dying as cover. They fell on the Reaper with a hundred pairs of claws and talons.

As secondaries arrived at the summit bio-weapons were being fired into the thing as well. The Reaper fought back with abandon. It whirled about, moving so fast that it betrayed gravity and the rules of physics. It was a blur of activity, eviscerating Krell. Pure shadow, no shape whatsoever; then a million spikes, black fractals that were painful to look at.

And yet still they came.

A hundred on the peak one minute, then a thousand. I crept towards the edge of the platform, against the tide of bodies.
Holy Christo.
Columns of xenos had formed on every flank; were streaming from every direction.

Through the chaos of battle, I reached the console. Hands to the machine: to the Shard Key…

I was paralysed by the signal. It consumed me. The futility of human existence became overwhelming, disablingly apparent.

A trio of Krell Needlers passed my flank, dangerously near to the platform edge. They were flying full-throttle, nose down. I watched in a kind of hypnotic trance as the much smaller ships adopted an attack formation. Krell stinger-warheads slammed into the platform, sent bodies toppling over the edge—

Two Krell Needlers exploded, chased by silver lances.

Got to stop this!

A third Krell Needler flew closer, and began to erratically jink. I saw the engine contrails flicker, thrusters cutting in and out. The ship was in trouble, even if the pilot didn't know it. A strand of black metal – tight and sharp as a spear – shot from the mêlée that enveloped the centre of the platform. With terrifying precision, the protrusion slammed into the Needler's belly. It tore through bio-plating, into the guts of the ship.

I braced. Knew what was coming next. I grabbed for the Key—

The ship banked dangerously. Clipped the structure. Krell slipped, fell from the platform. The Needler was on fire, engines suddenly buzzing with the swarm—

The ship hit the platform and exploded.

My perspective shifted, and I sailed over the edge of the structure.

As I dropped, confident in the knowledge that the fall would kill me, I saw the Abyss overhead.

Reality split at the seams, and the
Revenant
came through.