Unseen eye 18 : Showdown in the Golden chamber.
25 Jun 2022Lambast Mercy
Maul and Kai were combat-ready, so they waited outside Kaislas’ little armoury while Silas and Lamb synthesised, and changed into their combat-class pressure suits. Otto, Kais’ covas linked the rooms to the ships intercoms so everyone could talk. “Why not just detach and destroy the liner” asked Kai “That’ll get um”
“There’s children on board” said Silas
Lambast was glad Silas had his back to her while they got changed. She didn’t want him to see her ‘so what?’ face. In Lambs' opinion, if the children’s parents were gullible enough to fall for Orwells’ rubbish, their kids would be too. Using the self-destruct would improve the gene pool in her opinion.
“Um, not to mention the nine crystal-gold filters” added Maul looking up from the camera drone feeds he was monitoring “And Orwell could have information on the crystal-gold growing process that might not be in the hard drives”
“Oh yeah? How much crystal gold we talking about? Asked Kai “I mean, the price for that stuff here is like, cream of the credits”
Maul rubbed his cheek trying to think of a way to explain it so even Lamb and Kai could understand.
“No, you’re not getting the ramifications of being able to produce crystal gold. It has the conductivity of gold, the signal clarity of lasers’ and prismatic qualities that can filter or redirect light. It has the potential to be used in neurological and nervous system surgeries to repair previously untreatable damage or augment healthy people. If there was a way to grow the gold in..
“On that point..” interrupted Lamb. She knew Maul could talk for hours once he got on a subject he was passionate about. “..I was going to visit Silver Mountain Medical Centre and have a neuralnet and neuralwear processor fitted now they have a specialist nano-surgery department. Perhaps you would like to come along and have your eyes upgraded too?”
That stopped Maul in his tracks. The price of that surgery and the things he could do with a neurological interface were very tempting. It would certainly cost more than the sale of nine crystal gold monoliths.
“Ok, so it's old-fashioned engage and subdue,” said Silas loading non-lethal ammo into his weapons “Take down everyone and go easy on the short ones yeah?”
“Non-lethal?” questioned Lambast “Oh well, I better get my safety sword. You know, the one with no sharp edges, and no pointy bit at the end”
“Hay, it’s not our fault you use a weapon from the dark ages” Said Silas plainly “You’ll just have to rely on Kai. Maul, you’re with me”
“The renaissance actually” said Lamb a little hurt. She locked her sword into its sheath. “I’m a duellist, not a barbarian”
_____________________________
“Their Shields are down” said Maul ducking back “Your turn”
Silas rolled a flash-bang down the hall, waited for the detonation, and then advanced. Two Seekers took stun charges to the chest and went down. Maul was already binding one, while Silas restrained the other.
“So anyway” continued Maul “The gold could make a synthetic brain just as complicated as any human meat, augmented or not. That means an AI wouldn’t be limited to an adaptive program; it would have a brain that grows and makes connections just like a hum.. Kai, you go two round that corner” informed Maul interrupting himself.
The hacker was doing two jobs, fighting beside Silas and relaying intelligence from his camera drones.
Lamb bolted round the corner low and fast as a cockroach. She came up on the two men and started beating them with her sheathed sword, dodging their retaliations. Just as they were about to gain an upper hand, Kai appeared with a barrel for each of them.
It was a pleasure to watch the sisters fight. They had been each others’ backup since they were teenagers, and they had an almost supernatural ability to read the others' intention. That meant the two women fort almost as one mind.
“Where was I? asked Maul now there was no fighting “Oh yeah; so we could have AIs’ as individual as people, with the same probability for homicidal or genocidal tendencies as humans”
“Hu-huh” said Silas not really listening; Maul had gone beyond his understanding or interest “How far till the cargo modules access? I’m guessing just up here right?”
“Yep, and its’ still clear, but I can’t tell you what’s on the other side of the doors. The girls are almost at their end, and they got a clear run too”
“Ok, make sure we got secure coms. I wanna talk breach and subdue tactics” said Silas fuction checking his carbine after reloading his pistols.
The teams were plotted up meters away from the last run to the Seekers nest, with Mauls’ drones keeping an eye out so they could listen to Silas’ recap. Maul felt the electric tremble of every nerve in his body, ready for the call to action. He looked over at Silas, the man seemed as cool as ever. Maul couldn’t remember ever seeing the guy lose his chill.
It was the same story with Lambast on his little monitor; she looked the same as she did when she was preparing to cook dinner. At least she had a temper, and Maul had seen her crying, or tremble out of fear before. She didn’t like to show it, but she was only human. Kai on the other hand was sitting cross-legged on the ceiling playing a holo-console. She was a chaos engine; childish and as easily distracted as a kitten. Infect, Lamb kept shiny things in her pockets to distract Kai, and heard her where Lamb needed the girl to be.
“So, Maul has control of the bow and stern doors. When we are ready, he’ll open them and we suppress, advance, and engage. We have limited flash-bangs, so don’t waste them; use the space they give you to press on. Do your best to double-check anyone that goes down, stays down, but we can’t waist any time. Understood?”
Three variations on affirmative reached Silas in the natural order that had grown between the friends. Silas and Lamb were mum and dad, Maul and Kai were the kids. Now Silas needed to talk about breaching the cargo module.
“Ok, Lamb says that thing is built. It could be dropped from orbit, delivered at high speed, and come down on a high-G world with only scratches. Fortunately, as she was working on the detachable hull, she got a look at the full schematics for the cargo unit. Maul, the graphic if you please. Thank you. Ok, brace the hydraulic jack here, and here” Informed Silas as Mauls’ presentation played out on everyones’ wrist computer.
“The jack starts with an explosive charge so stay out the way, if it’s gonna go wrong, that’s the point it’ll fuck us up. If the jack can’t do the job, we’re going nowhere. The module is entirely self-contained, so if the door won't open, our assault is over. We can’t even jettison the module because Lamb made sure it was a dual, manual control to detach from the ship”
“Assuming the doors open, we proceed as we did in the access hall. Suppress, advance, and engage. Stick to your quadrant of the room, and watch out for your partner. We have an estimated sixty targets, with twenty being combatants. We are dealing with a cult, so don’t underestimate the power of religious devotion. Put them down, and put them down hard. If I was an ass hole, I’d use the children as a shield, so think about that, but your safety is paramount. We ready?”
Again three affirmatives reached Silas. Without more words, the two teams got up and went to face the Seekers. Approaching the access hall doors, Maul swallowed his heart and got ready to press the red button. The doors in question were burnt as if they had been used as target practice for a squad's worth of laser weapons on the other side. There was no time to question that, there was a plan, and it had to be executed.
The doors opened with a creak, and the motors strained to pull the miss-shaped doors back. A red miasma leaked into the hall, carrying sparkling partials in the claret cloud. It looked like a cheap effect in a holo-show, but the bodies piled up against the door spilling out into the hall hinted at its deadly nature.
“Withdraw. Withdraw”
“Abort. Abort”
Cried Silas and Lamb together. Each of them blocked their partner from progressing, as they backed away from the cloud. The teams retrreated back to the next sealabel doors and stopped while Maul purged the atmosphere.
“Ok, it's safe now” said maul “and it looks like the cargo unit is open. No need for hydraulic force now dude”
With their suits using internal air supply only, and external filters off, the teams went back to the cargo unit. Bodies of the Seekes filled the halls at both ends and the chamber itself. Most of them were undressed or naked, they had probably been celebrating so they had no protection from the gas. Their golden tattoos shined through a greasy orange film that covered everything.
“Well, that's just great,” said Kai using the coms “All that planning and the fuckers killed themselves. S’selfish is what it is”
Maul wanted to make a joke about Lamb going to one of the Seekers ‘parties’ by all the bodies floating in the huge room killed his sense of humour. The golden monoliths we’re also coated in the orange film, but it didn’t take much away from the skill and craftsmanship in their construction. Strings of crystal-gold were wrapped around and stretched between the frames, inter-woven stings, as if made on a loom. Each one must be worth hundreds of millions in Colonia, and there were nine of them.
“Movement” alerted Silas
Kai and Lamb moved so they could see Silas, and find what he had seen. A man that had been using the dead to hide stood up. His robe was covered in orange goo, but his old-style gas-mask was clean.
“Ar.. ohh.. Thank god you’re here Captainn-ah” said Orwell when he saw Lambast. “My seekers, they lost their sanity once they beheld the awesome majesty of a black hole. They are.. or were humble people, not privy to the wonders of space travel..”
Four people were beaming ‘I don’t believe you’ vibes his way hard, Orwell was going to have to dig deep to get out of this one.
“Is that the guy Lamb?” Asked Kai.
“No, that’s Mr Vandeman, the gob-shite that duped these morons. The one I’m looking for is tall with an honest face and dopy eyes. Goes by the name Napoleon” answered Lamb.
“Umm, think I killed him” Said Silas “Then Kai blew his head off. He was strong right, wanted to look into your eye all the time?”
“That’s the chap. Well, good to know you two got him before this stuff” said Lamb as she felt the slick effect of the orange oil between the finger and thumb of her gloves.
“This is the fuel for the beacon” inserted Orwell seeing an opening “It wasn’t meant to be used until you had delivered us to the site of recognition. But with what they.. .”
“Shut the fuck up” growled Maul “pointing his gun at Orwell, advancing on him “We know you pull this cult crap every time you need some credits for a big con. I’m glad you’re alive, becau..”
Orwells’ head exploded when a ball of hot-red plasma hit it.
“Oops, my finger slipped” chirped Kai holstering one of her plasma repeaters.
She was aware that everyone was looking at her; no one had moved. Lamb, Maul, and Silas each had their own reason to look at Kai in disbelief, but it all amounted to the same thing for Kaisla.
“What? He was an A-one triple distilled dick-hole right? So I killed him, get over it. Now, who’s coming back with me, and who wants to stay on the Orange-Death ship?” Asked Kai as she headed out of the chamber.
The other three looked around coming down from the high of a fight that didn’t happen.
“Orange death ship or not, it’s still cleaner than your flying rubbish tip Kai, and it's got almost three times the jump range. I’m staying on twenty-two” said Lamb falling in step with Kaisla. “I say, is anyone hungry? We’ll start dinner if you chaps don’t mind cleaning up this mess and securing the prisoners”
Silas was thinking of complaining, but he knew it was a losing battle now the threat had passed. He snorted a laugh through his nose and answered.
“Sure we will. Hay Lamb, you got any chicken?”
Maul wasn’t ready to ‘clean up this mess’ nor did he want to deal with the prisoners. This wasn’t over at all, there could be survivors, armed survivors. There were the people waiting at the hell-moon for the catalyst chamber, and the secrets of growing crystal-gold to learn. . but most of that could be dealt with later now Orwell was dead, and damn a home-cooked dinner sounded good.
“So whatever you cook Lamb, cook it with bacon on mine.. . please”