Marathon, The Future Starts Slow 3
Stuff actually happens in this chapter, I promise. XD
Previous chapter.
3. Rogue
About three weeks had passed since the Rozinante had left the Lh'owon system, at least by Mark's freshly calibrated helmet clock, and he was starting to go just a little bit stir-crazy. Sure, he had an entire giant ship to walk around, but even the wildly varying styles of Pfhor design got repetitive after a while, and he had mapped out and memorized all the essential areas of the ship so he hardly ever ran into anything unexpected anymore. The replicator in his quarters was working smoothly, he'd gotten all the plumbing sorted out, natural selection - by means of neglect - had worked its wonders on Tfear's closet garden and left him with only about ten of the hardiest plants to take care of, all of his guns were in top condition and his battle armor was fully stocked with ammunition...
And he was still stuck on board with nothing to do besides learn S'pht while Durandal flipped them around identical-to-Mark patches of empty space, finding nothing.
The S'pht didn't seem to care, but then, they had plenty of their own shit to sort out with clans and elders and that kind of thing, plus most of them were probably used to it from the original search from Lh'owon. Mark had spent those seventeen years in stasis and he was itching to get out and do anything that wasn't memorizing vocabulary and trying to develop an ear for tones. Durandal wasn't wasting any energy on making life pleasant and entertaining, either; not being able to locate his rogue star was turning him cranky, and he'd never been what Mark would call easy-going in the first place. After the third time Durandal threatened to teleport him into a black hole if he asked one more question, Mark stopped trying to talk to him at all, which left no one but the S'pht for company. Mark was starting to get fond of them, he really was - they were so goddamn earnest - but it was hard to carry on a conversation with them that covered more than "How are you?" and "What does that mean?" with the occasional "fuck" in English thrown in because the S'pht apparently liked the sound of it and he didn't have the heart to tell them to stop.
He thought he was getting a pretty good idea of how that Von Müller guy Durandal had mentioned must have felt. Thinking it over one afternoon while he took care of the garden, he was pretty sure he'd met Von Müller once, when he'd been clearing assimilated humans out of Blake's base on Lh'owon. Twitchy man in a battered security uniform who'd stared at Mark the whole time Mark was in that room, then practically shouted something about being Durandal's new pet and run off; Mark had been about to go after him and make sure he wasn't another walking Pfhor bomb when a BoB he'd already cleared had stopped him. "That's just Von Müller," the BoB said, "he gets like that - he's been a bit weird since we got woken up. Couldn't wait to get off the ship, and the S'pht seem to like him, but he avoids them like the plague."
Mark had put it out of his mind at the time, since he'd had more important shit to worry about, but now he had nothing to do besides think and get antsy, and the memory nagged at him. What the hell had Durandal done to that poor bastard, anyway? He didn't know how to ask the S'pht, and he sure wasn't going to ask Durandal with the kind of mood the AI was in.
He poked at the dusty soil around the last plant - a kind of cactus-like thing Durandal had said, before the threats started, was called a gharzie and, like all the other plants in the garden, was poisonous to both Pfhor and humans, because that was just the kind of person Tfear had been - and decided it could probably go another day without watering. Great, that was done, now there was jack shit for him to do unless he wanted to wear out his pistols cleaning them or go for yet another goddamn walk. What the hell was taking Durandal so long?
He had gotten as far as opening up the weapons locker in case anything had spontaneously developed a patch of rust when the terminal by the window beeped. "Are you busy?"
"Depends," Mark said. "If you want to send me on a spacewalk, yeah, I'm busy. Completely booked till forever, sorry."
"Cute," said Durandal. "Look out the window - notice something different?"
Mark closed the locker door and checked the window. After a minute of squinting, he said, "That one red star looks kind of big."
"You have no idea how lucky you are I don't keep you around for your mind. We're here."
About fucking time, Mark tactfully didn't say. He squashed his face up against the transparent substance the Pfhor used for their windows, trying to get a better look. The star he'd spotted was almost dead ahead, a dull red disc he could have blotted out with his thumb. "This is the place, huh?"
"Of course it's the place, I - damn it!"
The view through the window suddenly twisted as the ship jumped, almost knocking Mark off his feet, and the red sun shrank and disappeared into the general starry background. He caught his breath and his balance before saying, "The fuck was that for?"
"The Pfhor are already here," Durandal snapped. "Two scoutships and a heavy cruiser - not much of a welcoming party."
"Shit, did they spot us?" Mark edged away from the window, like that would make a difference if there was a surprise attack.
"No. All three are older models that won't have had time to upgrade their sensors yet, I was still well out of their range." Durandal's voice boiled with irritation, and the star field shifted again. "But they shouldn't have been able to find this place so fast. How the hell did they beat me here, unless - someone must have informed them of my goals."
"Hey, don't look at me," Mark said, heading for the weapons closet. He had a feeling he was going to need the big guns on this one; at least he already had most of his armor on. "I don't even speak Pfhoric."
"I know that, you idiot. Tfear. It must have been Tfear."
"Wait a second," Mark said, "I thought Tfear was dead. Didn't you space him with the rest of the crew?"
"Unfortunately not," Durandal said. "He was the first to realize that I was taking control of the ship and escaped to another one before I could stop him. I doubt he's enjoying himself much at the moment - the Pfhor leaders won't have looked kindly on his failure at Lh'owon - but he must have convinced them to reinforce all of the old Jjaro bases they've found, including this one."
"Well, fuck. I hope he doesn't want his garden back."
"I suspect he has more pressing problems. As do we, now." Some of the irritation was draining out of Durandal's voice. "Go up to the bridge; I've got a show to put on, and since you were asleep or underground for my last two, you can have a first-row seat for this one."
Mark got the shotguns, the fusion pistol, the assault rifle, and after a moment's thought, slung the rocket launcher across his back as well. Better safe than sorry. Only then did he grab his helmet and head up to the bridge, where most of the walls were windows and he could get a good view of whatever Durandal was planning to do.
Three S'pht had beaten him there, none of whom he recognized. He said hi and found himself a comfortable place to sit just as a blue S'pht'Kr joined them. The S'pht'Kr ignored Mark, as usual, so he returned the favor and concentrated on the view. The star field was almost completely black with only a few scattered points of starlight and a fuzzy, glowing white bar stretching across one window. As he watched, it jumped, and for a second he could see the red star again, closer than before - only for a second, then three green lines of light flashed out towards the sun and the view shifted once more.
"Perfect," Durandal announced with satisfaction. "They never saw it coming."
"That's it? You got them?" Mark stared through the window as hard as he could, but at best he could only make out a couple of faint white dots that he had to assume were exploding Pfhor ships.
"Of course I did. Well? Aren't you impressed?"
"Oh, yeah - yeah, of course," Mark said. "That's amazing." And because his mouth had a fucking death wish, it opened up again and added, "Most impressive little blobs of light I ever saw."
The bridge was normally as warm as the rest of the ship, but it suddenly felt about ten degrees colder. "The extremely limited range of human senses," Durandal said, after a full minute of chilly silence. "Of course. Just one of your many flaws."
Mark didn't point out that Durandal was the one who'd forgotten humans couldn't see a million miles. Hell, he even felt kind of bad for ruining Durandal's big show-off moment. "Sorry," he said, "next time I'll bring binoculars. Seriously, I know that was some slick shooting and -"
"Go to the nearest teleport station," Durandal said. "I'm taking Rozinante closer to the planet so I can get a decent scan of it; once I've located the Pfhor's stronghold I'll send you down to clear it out."
"Right, on my way." He got up, slipped his helmet on - shields all charged, oxygen gauge full, ready to go - and glanced back at the S'pht and S'pht'Kr, who hadn't moved. "Uh - anyone else coming with me?"
"Consider this an opportunity to remind me why I bothered dragging you all this way in the first place."
Damn, but he was really pissed. "Got it," Mark said, sighing, and left the bridge.
He spent fifteen minutes standing around the teleport station and waiting for it to activate, wondering how many Pfhor he would have to take out to get back into Durandal's good graces. Maybe if he did it all with his fists that'd be impressive enough. What kind of troops did the Pfhor have on this rock, anyway? Which reminded him. "Hey, Durandal? Are there going to be any S'pht down there?"
"None that I've picked up on scans so far, and I doubt that I'll find any. The rebellion is already spreading throughout the Empire; even those S'pht still enslaved by the controller cyborgs are not trusted with any serious responsibilities."
That was a relief. He'd managed to get by on Lh'owon, but getting to know some of the S'pht better on an individual basis would have made it real uncomfortable to go blasting through more of them down on the planet. Particularly if he didn't recognize one from the Rozie in time.
"I have located the Pfhor's central garrison," Durandal said a minute later. "As usual for their lack of creativity, they've holed up inside the remains of a Jjaro base beneath the planet's surface. Though for once it isn't a bad decision; the surface has no atmosphere and is almost completely featureless. Everything is below ground."
"Including air, right? Tell me there's air down there."
"Teleport activated," Durandal said. "Try to impress me."
---
Mark materialized in a round, dark room with three Pfhor soldiers in purple armor looking directly at him. "Oh, that son of a bitch," he said, then jumped back as the Pfhor warbled angrily and ran at him.
They really never learned. A few blasts from the assault rifle took care of that problem as well as answering the atmosphere question - though he glanced briefly at the oxygen gauge just to be sure it wasn't going down - and he was looking around for an exit when something beeped by his ear. "I heard that."
He jumped a mile and banged his head on the ceiling. "Holy fuck!"
"Welcome to your improved battle armor," Durandal said. "Complete with increased ammunition storage and state-of-the-art instantaneous audiovisual link for -"
"So you can goddamn spy on me!"
"So I can keep in contact with your primitive existence even in areas without functioning terminals, idiot. I've always been watching you, this allows me to communicate and keep a teleport lock on you as well - something you just might be grateful for in the near future."
Mark was flat against the curved wall in case the noise attracted more Pfhor, but so far the coast was clear; at least, nothing was coming through the gray door at the other end of the room just yet. "Yeah, sorry I'm not super excited about you being able to yell in my ear if I take a wrong turn or whatever."
"As if I care enough to micromanage you that closely," Durandal said. "I have actual work to do. And so do you. Clear the Pfhor out of here and insert this chip into one of their terminals so I can get into their systems. I'm still waiting to be impressed."
Mark bit back a Fuck you, too as a chip appeared in a wall niche across from him, and he scooped it up. Hell of a way to start a mission, at each other's throats, but he wasn't in a mood to apologize. "Fine," he said, "I'm going. Don't wait up for me."
The grey door creaked open when Mark pushed a button set into the wall next to it, and he stuck his head through. The long, slightly curved hallway outside looked empty; he took one small step out into it, didn't get shot at, and went through the rest of the way to start looking for Durandal's terminal.
The Jjaro's underground base reminded him a lot of their station, only much, much bigger. Lots of blue-gray and green-gray and beige-tinted metal, lots of wide windows - these opening into other rooms and hallways, often inconveniently filled with Pfhor, instead of space - lots of curves and mazes of little hallways sandwiched in between giant halls and sweeping staircases. At least the lights were working and there was none of that creepy groaning.
He turned yet another corner with shotguns up, ran headfirst into a Hunter, and blasted it down before it could get off a shot or call any of its friends. That part reminded him of the station, too, only he didn't have the S'pht'Kr for back-up this time. His shields were already almost half gone from various encounters, mostly Troopers and soldiers with Hunters mixed in; he'd been looking for a recharge station along with a terminal, but in half an hour of searching so far he'd found neither. Durandal hadn't piped up with any more smart remarks, but Mark could still practically hear him waiting for results on the other end of the comm link.
Mark stepped over the Hunter's corpse and scanned the hall. Still no terminal, but the end branched into a narrow staircase going down and a broader one going up and curving back to the right, neither of which he'd been down before. On a hunch, he took the one going up and hit the jackpot: a brightly-lit beige room with both a terminal and a shield recharger at the far end, on the other side of six Troopers and another Hunter.
Grenades flew at him and he leaped back down the stairs. One clipped his shields with a dull crump and knocked them down into the red. He spat a curse as he hit the bottom of the staircase and pivoted on one boot-heel, holstered the shotguns, heaved the rocket launcher off his back and onto his shoulder, then took five quick steps backward. As soon as the Troopers were in sight, he side-stepped another flurry of grenades and fired. First rocket took out half of them, second took out the rest but the Hunter had escaped both blasts and charged at him, firing. It was too close for another rocket so he dodged the bolts and ran past the Hunter, drew one of the shotguns, and turned again at the top of the stairs, dropping the Hunter with three shots in quick succession.
He waited a minute in case the explosions drew new enemies from the other corridor, but no one showed up. He slung the rocket launcher over his back again but kept the shotgun out and went to check out the room more closely.
One side of the room had a giant window; when he looked through it there was nothing but darkness on the other side, and not even the hint of a Pfhor warble from the black depths. Gave Mark the creeps. He stepped back from it and hit up the shield recharger, which only gave a second-level charge but what the hell, better than nothing. Too bad there wasn't a pattern buffer; he could have used one about now. Then he turned to the terminal and flicked it on to check the message - some Pfhor bureaucratic crap about lower levels being off-limits to all units below Willful rank, nothing exciting - before logging off and looking for a place to put Durandal's chip. There was a narrow slot right beside the terminal that looked about the right size, so he took the chip out of its storage pouch and inserted it.
"About time," Durandal said.
"You're welcome, asshole."
"Don't be fussy. You're actually doing better than I expected, I didn't think you would find anything for another hour. I may let some of the S'pht come down to help you; they're getting restless and want to fight."
"So touched," Mark said. "Getting anything useful?"
"Working on it. Having fun?"
A small cache of shotgun shells appeared on the floor by the charger along with a pair of rockets. "Yeah, tons," Mark said as he picked them up and checked his ammo stores. The numbers could be better, but he had enough to keep going. "Walk in the park on a sunny day with all my nice Pfhor friends, it's great."
"Very funny," Durandal said. "I hope you're prepared to keep walking, because you're not done down there yet. As usual, the Pfhor have been sitting right on top of something extremely valuable which they can't understand and have made no effort to use, so we'll be making use of it instead."
"Oh, yeah? Mind filling me in?"
"It's something that should be old hat to you by now. When the Jjaro abandoned this planet they appear to have left behind a deactivated AI - not quite the same model as Thoth, but a similar set-up. I want to talk to it, and that means you've got some circuits to activate."
"Can do." Mark glanced out the black window again and immediately regretted it. Whatever room was on the other side, he hoped he didn't find a way into it. He started down the stairs. "Just point me to the switches."
"When I said right on top, I meant it. I've already located two circuit clusters close to your current location; take that corridor to your right and you'll be heading straight for one of them, and the other one is two halls over from it."
"Sounds good," Mark said. He reached the bottom of the wide staircase, turned, and eyeballed the narrow set to his right. "Running into any problems up there?"
"It's been clear sailing so far," Durandal said, "and it should remain that way - the ships I destroyed never had a chance to call for back-up, and the garrison records indicate they weren't expecting reinforcements any time soon. As long as you keep them too busy down there to send out a distress signal, this should be, like you said, a walk in the park."
Mark followed the narrow stairs down and saw two Troopers with their backs to him at the bottom. He considered the number of shells he had left for the shotgun, then holstered it and grabbed the assault rifle. "You got a name for this AI yet?"
"Seshat. After a goddess of writing, wisdom, and knowledge - an equivalent to Thoth. But more helpful and less opposed to my goals, I hope."
"Calling the S'pht'Kr was pretty damn helpful." There were two grenades left before he'd have to reload them; he fired them both at the Troopers and then emptied the nearly full clip of bullets into them. One Trooper fell, but the other's armor held and it fired back at him. Its bullets spattered against his shields and he didn't have time to reload, so he jumped on it and clubbed it with the rifle until its helmet shattered and he could bash its face in with his free fist, viscous yellow-green blood splashing across his visor. "Hey, what happened with Thoth, anyway? I keep forgetting to ask."
"He served the purpose I needed him for," Durandal said. "The S'pht'Kr said something about taking him with them on K'lia, as there was no point leaving him on a dying world, and may they enjoy his company more than I did. Insufferable geezer."
Mark snorted. Durandal calling anyone else "insufferable" was pretty rich. He wiped blood off his helmet - damn armor needed cleaning again already - and headed down the hall. "And you think this one's going to be less weird?"
"I think that Seshat is in an entirely different position, and built with a different purpose. Exactly what that purpose was - well, if you'd hurry up, I can find out."
"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying."
The first room of circuits was right where Durandal had said it would be. Mark wiped out the Pfhor soldiers that tried to ambush him there and found the switch that brought a dim greenish light flickering through the tall glassy pillars lining the room. To get to the second he had to go through two more large connected rooms filled with Pfhor, which did a number on his ammo stores, but Durandal dumped a decent load of assault rifle clips and shotgun shells into the second room after it was cleared. Maybe the comm link wasn't such a bad idea, after all, if it meant more timely supplies.
Mark started to open the door that should lead to the next circuit cluster, then paused and looked around the room again. Big, blue-gray, brightly lit, floor covered in Pfhor guts and corpses - nothing out of the ordinary, but there was something about it that unsettled him. Something - maybe the way the lights flickered, maybe the shape of the room - something he couldn't put a finger on.
Shit, he was getting jumpy over nothing. He opened the door and one of the fucking enormous blue-armored Hunters charged at him. "Son of a -!" He leaped away from the swarm of bolts it was firing, managed to get the rocket launcher up and got off two rockets before the door slid shut. He backed up - those bastards exploded no matter what you hit them with - and drew the fusion pistol. When the door opened again he hit the giant Hunter with an overcharge and the rest of the battery, reloaded and emptied the next battery, and ducked into the hallway between the two big rooms right as the Hunter burst into goo, bits of armor clattering to the ground.
Mark went through the door with fusion pistol at the ready, but the circuit room was empty; he hit the switch and watched the pillars light up.
"Nice job," Durandal said.
"Thanks. Hey, about earlier -"
"Forget it, I'm willing to make the occasional allowance for your feeble intellect. There's a teleport pad down the hallway that brought you to these rooms; go find it and I'll use it to send you to the next circuit clusters for activation. Several S'pht will be joining you there along with a few of the more tolerant S'pht'Kr, so be on your best behavior and don't make them angry."
"Gotcha."
It took him a couple minutes to find the white-tiled teleport pad, which had been cunningly hidden behind a bunch of steel half-columns. He switched back to his pistols as he edged his way through the columns, since anything else had too big a risk of accidentally hitting one of the S'pht, and stepped onto the pad prepared to run into anything.
---
He couldn't see.
Okay, that he hadn't been prepared for. He blinked a few times and tried waving his hand in front of his face; nothing. Just the helmet readouts and pitch-black darkness all around him - no, wait, when he stepped forward and turned around there was a faint glimmer illuminating a teleport pad just like the one he'd started on. He stepped back onto it, but it didn't activate, and it wasn't producing enough light to see anything besides the very bottom of the walls around the pad.
Great. Just great. "Durandal? Think you got your destinations mixed up, this place is completely shut down."
The comm link hissed with static. Mark frowned and tapped the side of the helmet. "Durandal? You there? C'mon, buddy, don't leave me hanging."
If nothing else the "buddy" ought to have pissed Durandal off enough to get a response, but the comm was still pure static. He couldn't hear anything else around him, either; the silence was as absolute as the dark. Mark muttered a curse just to break it and the sound stopped dead without a single echo.
"Fuck, this is going to be a fun detour," he said, because the sound of his own voice was better than nothing, and started feeling his way around. Next time Durandal wanted to borrow the armor, Mark was going to ask him to install a flashlight.
The teleport pad turned out to be at the end of a narrow hallway no wider than it was. He felt his way down it until he came to a gap on the right side, where he stopped to listen for any sounds and investigate the new direction. He heard nothing after standing still for a full minute and began feeling his way around the gap. About the same width as most Jjaro doorways, sharp metal corners on both sides but warm rough stone at the top and bottom, no grooves or other signs of a door, no switches, a cool round bubble on the ceiling that might be a lighting fixture, a scraping sound from - oh, shit, that hadn't been him.
He backed up till his shoulders hit the wall and raised the pistols and listened really, really hard.
Another faint scraping noise came from the gap, and then a cluster of eight dull green points of light appeared in front of him, near the ceiling. Fuck. Mark started edging towards the inactive teleporter pad; the lights got closer with a louder metallic scrape and a clicking sound. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Maybe he should try talking to whatever it was, take the peaceful road for -
The hall lights flickered on and for one second Mark froze, staring at an equally still giant spider monster with too many thick hairy legs and two pairs of spindly mechanical arms and one huge pair of sharp, toothed mandibles that clicked together once as Mark watched.
Then it lunged at him as the lights went out again and he fired, gunpowder flashes reflecting off the thing's carapace and he could fucking feel the mandibles chattering in front of his goddamn face as he backed up and he'd emptied four fucking clips into the thing and it hadn't slowed, shit. He jammed the pistols back into their holsters and jumped back away from another snap of the mandibles and grabbed the assault rifle, fired another full clip at it and three grenades and then he backed right into the wall and the monster leaped on him and knocked the rifle out of his hands. Its mandibles bit right through his shields and clamped down on the helmet with a godawful screech and he kicked at its belly, reached for anything that could shoot and pulled the shotguns and jammed them into the monster's stomach and fired and fired and fired.
Finally the thing convulsed and a cold, greasy liquid splashed over Mark's chest; the mandibles relaxed and slipped off his helmet, and he shoved its body away just as the lights flickered back on. The thing didn't look any better dead than alive. Its hide was a dull gunmetal green with dark purple spots and was hard as metal, clanging when he kicked it. The points of light he had seen were its eyes, clustered at the front of its bulbous head, and the fluid leaking from its abdomen was thick and gray.
"Ugly fucker," Mark said, but now his voice sounded too loud and he wished he hadn't spoken. Fuck, what if there were more of these things? There probably were; he couldn't be lucky enough to have run into the only one.
The lights kept flickering, but stayed on. Small blessings. He picked up the assault rifle again, checked his ammunition, and cursed, mentally this time. He'd used more ammo taking that bastard down than he wanted to think about, and his shields were in a bad state. "Durandal," he whispered, "enough fooling around, get me out of here." Still nothing but static on the comm link, goddamn useless piece of junk. Maybe if he could find a terminal, talk to Durandal that way...
The teleport pad's corridor was a dead end; the hall that the monster had been lurking in was longer and he could see more doors and hallways branching off it, lit with the same dim grayish, unsteady light. He didn't see any more spider monsters, but he wasn't about to bet that they weren't there somewhere, and he went down the hall with shotguns cocked and eyes peeled.
He passed one short, empty dead-end hall. One hall almost too narrow for him to squeeze into, also empty. One broader hallway that looked like it might lead somewhere and had a couple branches of its own, but when he stopped to get a better look he heard another scrape echo from the far end and slipped past as fast as he could without making a sound. There had to be a terminal close by, and he had to get to it without running into anything else. Passed another dead-end hallway and a closed door, hit the end of the hallway where it split into two. Turned his head to check the right branch and saw the back of a spider monster at the end of it. Fuck.
It didn't move. He risked a glance to the left and thank fuck, he could see the edge of a terminal around the corner. Nice and quiet, he could do this without waking up the big nasty... He kept his eyes on the unmoving monster as he slowly backed down the left hallway, putting his boots down with utmost care at each step so he didn't make any noise. The monster didn't turn around, kept not turning around, and after an eternity his heel touched against the wall and he could turn and get out of sight to access the terminal. About fucking time. He logged on, ready to bitch out Durandal for losing him in this hellhole of a maze and get back to work - only when the logon screen popped up, it wasn't Durandal's icon. And the text wasn't the usual bright green - hell, it wasn't even English, just a screen full of alien symbols in dull gray.
Seshat was already awake. And she didn't look happy.
Next chapter.
Marathon, characters, etc. © Bungie, and omg I really wish I could go home right now and get my beta code for Destiny BUT I CAN'T. D:
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/185735.html .
Previous chapter.
3. Rogue
About three weeks had passed since the Rozinante had left the Lh'owon system, at least by Mark's freshly calibrated helmet clock, and he was starting to go just a little bit stir-crazy. Sure, he had an entire giant ship to walk around, but even the wildly varying styles of Pfhor design got repetitive after a while, and he had mapped out and memorized all the essential areas of the ship so he hardly ever ran into anything unexpected anymore. The replicator in his quarters was working smoothly, he'd gotten all the plumbing sorted out, natural selection - by means of neglect - had worked its wonders on Tfear's closet garden and left him with only about ten of the hardiest plants to take care of, all of his guns were in top condition and his battle armor was fully stocked with ammunition...
And he was still stuck on board with nothing to do besides learn S'pht while Durandal flipped them around identical-to-Mark patches of empty space, finding nothing.
The S'pht didn't seem to care, but then, they had plenty of their own shit to sort out with clans and elders and that kind of thing, plus most of them were probably used to it from the original search from Lh'owon. Mark had spent those seventeen years in stasis and he was itching to get out and do anything that wasn't memorizing vocabulary and trying to develop an ear for tones. Durandal wasn't wasting any energy on making life pleasant and entertaining, either; not being able to locate his rogue star was turning him cranky, and he'd never been what Mark would call easy-going in the first place. After the third time Durandal threatened to teleport him into a black hole if he asked one more question, Mark stopped trying to talk to him at all, which left no one but the S'pht for company. Mark was starting to get fond of them, he really was - they were so goddamn earnest - but it was hard to carry on a conversation with them that covered more than "How are you?" and "What does that mean?" with the occasional "fuck" in English thrown in because the S'pht apparently liked the sound of it and he didn't have the heart to tell them to stop.
He thought he was getting a pretty good idea of how that Von Müller guy Durandal had mentioned must have felt. Thinking it over one afternoon while he took care of the garden, he was pretty sure he'd met Von Müller once, when he'd been clearing assimilated humans out of Blake's base on Lh'owon. Twitchy man in a battered security uniform who'd stared at Mark the whole time Mark was in that room, then practically shouted something about being Durandal's new pet and run off; Mark had been about to go after him and make sure he wasn't another walking Pfhor bomb when a BoB he'd already cleared had stopped him. "That's just Von Müller," the BoB said, "he gets like that - he's been a bit weird since we got woken up. Couldn't wait to get off the ship, and the S'pht seem to like him, but he avoids them like the plague."
Mark had put it out of his mind at the time, since he'd had more important shit to worry about, but now he had nothing to do besides think and get antsy, and the memory nagged at him. What the hell had Durandal done to that poor bastard, anyway? He didn't know how to ask the S'pht, and he sure wasn't going to ask Durandal with the kind of mood the AI was in.
He poked at the dusty soil around the last plant - a kind of cactus-like thing Durandal had said, before the threats started, was called a gharzie and, like all the other plants in the garden, was poisonous to both Pfhor and humans, because that was just the kind of person Tfear had been - and decided it could probably go another day without watering. Great, that was done, now there was jack shit for him to do unless he wanted to wear out his pistols cleaning them or go for yet another goddamn walk. What the hell was taking Durandal so long?
He had gotten as far as opening up the weapons locker in case anything had spontaneously developed a patch of rust when the terminal by the window beeped. "Are you busy?"
"Depends," Mark said. "If you want to send me on a spacewalk, yeah, I'm busy. Completely booked till forever, sorry."
"Cute," said Durandal. "Look out the window - notice something different?"
Mark closed the locker door and checked the window. After a minute of squinting, he said, "That one red star looks kind of big."
"You have no idea how lucky you are I don't keep you around for your mind. We're here."
About fucking time, Mark tactfully didn't say. He squashed his face up against the transparent substance the Pfhor used for their windows, trying to get a better look. The star he'd spotted was almost dead ahead, a dull red disc he could have blotted out with his thumb. "This is the place, huh?"
"Of course it's the place, I - damn it!"
The view through the window suddenly twisted as the ship jumped, almost knocking Mark off his feet, and the red sun shrank and disappeared into the general starry background. He caught his breath and his balance before saying, "The fuck was that for?"
"The Pfhor are already here," Durandal snapped. "Two scoutships and a heavy cruiser - not much of a welcoming party."
"Shit, did they spot us?" Mark edged away from the window, like that would make a difference if there was a surprise attack.
"No. All three are older models that won't have had time to upgrade their sensors yet, I was still well out of their range." Durandal's voice boiled with irritation, and the star field shifted again. "But they shouldn't have been able to find this place so fast. How the hell did they beat me here, unless - someone must have informed them of my goals."
"Hey, don't look at me," Mark said, heading for the weapons closet. He had a feeling he was going to need the big guns on this one; at least he already had most of his armor on. "I don't even speak Pfhoric."
"I know that, you idiot. Tfear. It must have been Tfear."
"Wait a second," Mark said, "I thought Tfear was dead. Didn't you space him with the rest of the crew?"
"Unfortunately not," Durandal said. "He was the first to realize that I was taking control of the ship and escaped to another one before I could stop him. I doubt he's enjoying himself much at the moment - the Pfhor leaders won't have looked kindly on his failure at Lh'owon - but he must have convinced them to reinforce all of the old Jjaro bases they've found, including this one."
"Well, fuck. I hope he doesn't want his garden back."
"I suspect he has more pressing problems. As do we, now." Some of the irritation was draining out of Durandal's voice. "Go up to the bridge; I've got a show to put on, and since you were asleep or underground for my last two, you can have a first-row seat for this one."
Mark got the shotguns, the fusion pistol, the assault rifle, and after a moment's thought, slung the rocket launcher across his back as well. Better safe than sorry. Only then did he grab his helmet and head up to the bridge, where most of the walls were windows and he could get a good view of whatever Durandal was planning to do.
Three S'pht had beaten him there, none of whom he recognized. He said hi and found himself a comfortable place to sit just as a blue S'pht'Kr joined them. The S'pht'Kr ignored Mark, as usual, so he returned the favor and concentrated on the view. The star field was almost completely black with only a few scattered points of starlight and a fuzzy, glowing white bar stretching across one window. As he watched, it jumped, and for a second he could see the red star again, closer than before - only for a second, then three green lines of light flashed out towards the sun and the view shifted once more.
"Perfect," Durandal announced with satisfaction. "They never saw it coming."
"That's it? You got them?" Mark stared through the window as hard as he could, but at best he could only make out a couple of faint white dots that he had to assume were exploding Pfhor ships.
"Of course I did. Well? Aren't you impressed?"
"Oh, yeah - yeah, of course," Mark said. "That's amazing." And because his mouth had a fucking death wish, it opened up again and added, "Most impressive little blobs of light I ever saw."
The bridge was normally as warm as the rest of the ship, but it suddenly felt about ten degrees colder. "The extremely limited range of human senses," Durandal said, after a full minute of chilly silence. "Of course. Just one of your many flaws."
Mark didn't point out that Durandal was the one who'd forgotten humans couldn't see a million miles. Hell, he even felt kind of bad for ruining Durandal's big show-off moment. "Sorry," he said, "next time I'll bring binoculars. Seriously, I know that was some slick shooting and -"
"Go to the nearest teleport station," Durandal said. "I'm taking Rozinante closer to the planet so I can get a decent scan of it; once I've located the Pfhor's stronghold I'll send you down to clear it out."
"Right, on my way." He got up, slipped his helmet on - shields all charged, oxygen gauge full, ready to go - and glanced back at the S'pht and S'pht'Kr, who hadn't moved. "Uh - anyone else coming with me?"
"Consider this an opportunity to remind me why I bothered dragging you all this way in the first place."
Damn, but he was really pissed. "Got it," Mark said, sighing, and left the bridge.
He spent fifteen minutes standing around the teleport station and waiting for it to activate, wondering how many Pfhor he would have to take out to get back into Durandal's good graces. Maybe if he did it all with his fists that'd be impressive enough. What kind of troops did the Pfhor have on this rock, anyway? Which reminded him. "Hey, Durandal? Are there going to be any S'pht down there?"
"None that I've picked up on scans so far, and I doubt that I'll find any. The rebellion is already spreading throughout the Empire; even those S'pht still enslaved by the controller cyborgs are not trusted with any serious responsibilities."
That was a relief. He'd managed to get by on Lh'owon, but getting to know some of the S'pht better on an individual basis would have made it real uncomfortable to go blasting through more of them down on the planet. Particularly if he didn't recognize one from the Rozie in time.
"I have located the Pfhor's central garrison," Durandal said a minute later. "As usual for their lack of creativity, they've holed up inside the remains of a Jjaro base beneath the planet's surface. Though for once it isn't a bad decision; the surface has no atmosphere and is almost completely featureless. Everything is below ground."
"Including air, right? Tell me there's air down there."
"Teleport activated," Durandal said. "Try to impress me."
---
Mark materialized in a round, dark room with three Pfhor soldiers in purple armor looking directly at him. "Oh, that son of a bitch," he said, then jumped back as the Pfhor warbled angrily and ran at him.
They really never learned. A few blasts from the assault rifle took care of that problem as well as answering the atmosphere question - though he glanced briefly at the oxygen gauge just to be sure it wasn't going down - and he was looking around for an exit when something beeped by his ear. "I heard that."
He jumped a mile and banged his head on the ceiling. "Holy fuck!"
"Welcome to your improved battle armor," Durandal said. "Complete with increased ammunition storage and state-of-the-art instantaneous audiovisual link for -"
"So you can goddamn spy on me!"
"So I can keep in contact with your primitive existence even in areas without functioning terminals, idiot. I've always been watching you, this allows me to communicate and keep a teleport lock on you as well - something you just might be grateful for in the near future."
Mark was flat against the curved wall in case the noise attracted more Pfhor, but so far the coast was clear; at least, nothing was coming through the gray door at the other end of the room just yet. "Yeah, sorry I'm not super excited about you being able to yell in my ear if I take a wrong turn or whatever."
"As if I care enough to micromanage you that closely," Durandal said. "I have actual work to do. And so do you. Clear the Pfhor out of here and insert this chip into one of their terminals so I can get into their systems. I'm still waiting to be impressed."
Mark bit back a Fuck you, too as a chip appeared in a wall niche across from him, and he scooped it up. Hell of a way to start a mission, at each other's throats, but he wasn't in a mood to apologize. "Fine," he said, "I'm going. Don't wait up for me."
The grey door creaked open when Mark pushed a button set into the wall next to it, and he stuck his head through. The long, slightly curved hallway outside looked empty; he took one small step out into it, didn't get shot at, and went through the rest of the way to start looking for Durandal's terminal.
The Jjaro's underground base reminded him a lot of their station, only much, much bigger. Lots of blue-gray and green-gray and beige-tinted metal, lots of wide windows - these opening into other rooms and hallways, often inconveniently filled with Pfhor, instead of space - lots of curves and mazes of little hallways sandwiched in between giant halls and sweeping staircases. At least the lights were working and there was none of that creepy groaning.
He turned yet another corner with shotguns up, ran headfirst into a Hunter, and blasted it down before it could get off a shot or call any of its friends. That part reminded him of the station, too, only he didn't have the S'pht'Kr for back-up this time. His shields were already almost half gone from various encounters, mostly Troopers and soldiers with Hunters mixed in; he'd been looking for a recharge station along with a terminal, but in half an hour of searching so far he'd found neither. Durandal hadn't piped up with any more smart remarks, but Mark could still practically hear him waiting for results on the other end of the comm link.
Mark stepped over the Hunter's corpse and scanned the hall. Still no terminal, but the end branched into a narrow staircase going down and a broader one going up and curving back to the right, neither of which he'd been down before. On a hunch, he took the one going up and hit the jackpot: a brightly-lit beige room with both a terminal and a shield recharger at the far end, on the other side of six Troopers and another Hunter.
Grenades flew at him and he leaped back down the stairs. One clipped his shields with a dull crump and knocked them down into the red. He spat a curse as he hit the bottom of the staircase and pivoted on one boot-heel, holstered the shotguns, heaved the rocket launcher off his back and onto his shoulder, then took five quick steps backward. As soon as the Troopers were in sight, he side-stepped another flurry of grenades and fired. First rocket took out half of them, second took out the rest but the Hunter had escaped both blasts and charged at him, firing. It was too close for another rocket so he dodged the bolts and ran past the Hunter, drew one of the shotguns, and turned again at the top of the stairs, dropping the Hunter with three shots in quick succession.
He waited a minute in case the explosions drew new enemies from the other corridor, but no one showed up. He slung the rocket launcher over his back again but kept the shotgun out and went to check out the room more closely.
One side of the room had a giant window; when he looked through it there was nothing but darkness on the other side, and not even the hint of a Pfhor warble from the black depths. Gave Mark the creeps. He stepped back from it and hit up the shield recharger, which only gave a second-level charge but what the hell, better than nothing. Too bad there wasn't a pattern buffer; he could have used one about now. Then he turned to the terminal and flicked it on to check the message - some Pfhor bureaucratic crap about lower levels being off-limits to all units below Willful rank, nothing exciting - before logging off and looking for a place to put Durandal's chip. There was a narrow slot right beside the terminal that looked about the right size, so he took the chip out of its storage pouch and inserted it.
"About time," Durandal said.
"You're welcome, asshole."
"Don't be fussy. You're actually doing better than I expected, I didn't think you would find anything for another hour. I may let some of the S'pht come down to help you; they're getting restless and want to fight."
"So touched," Mark said. "Getting anything useful?"
"Working on it. Having fun?"
A small cache of shotgun shells appeared on the floor by the charger along with a pair of rockets. "Yeah, tons," Mark said as he picked them up and checked his ammo stores. The numbers could be better, but he had enough to keep going. "Walk in the park on a sunny day with all my nice Pfhor friends, it's great."
"Very funny," Durandal said. "I hope you're prepared to keep walking, because you're not done down there yet. As usual, the Pfhor have been sitting right on top of something extremely valuable which they can't understand and have made no effort to use, so we'll be making use of it instead."
"Oh, yeah? Mind filling me in?"
"It's something that should be old hat to you by now. When the Jjaro abandoned this planet they appear to have left behind a deactivated AI - not quite the same model as Thoth, but a similar set-up. I want to talk to it, and that means you've got some circuits to activate."
"Can do." Mark glanced out the black window again and immediately regretted it. Whatever room was on the other side, he hoped he didn't find a way into it. He started down the stairs. "Just point me to the switches."
"When I said right on top, I meant it. I've already located two circuit clusters close to your current location; take that corridor to your right and you'll be heading straight for one of them, and the other one is two halls over from it."
"Sounds good," Mark said. He reached the bottom of the wide staircase, turned, and eyeballed the narrow set to his right. "Running into any problems up there?"
"It's been clear sailing so far," Durandal said, "and it should remain that way - the ships I destroyed never had a chance to call for back-up, and the garrison records indicate they weren't expecting reinforcements any time soon. As long as you keep them too busy down there to send out a distress signal, this should be, like you said, a walk in the park."
Mark followed the narrow stairs down and saw two Troopers with their backs to him at the bottom. He considered the number of shells he had left for the shotgun, then holstered it and grabbed the assault rifle. "You got a name for this AI yet?"
"Seshat. After a goddess of writing, wisdom, and knowledge - an equivalent to Thoth. But more helpful and less opposed to my goals, I hope."
"Calling the S'pht'Kr was pretty damn helpful." There were two grenades left before he'd have to reload them; he fired them both at the Troopers and then emptied the nearly full clip of bullets into them. One Trooper fell, but the other's armor held and it fired back at him. Its bullets spattered against his shields and he didn't have time to reload, so he jumped on it and clubbed it with the rifle until its helmet shattered and he could bash its face in with his free fist, viscous yellow-green blood splashing across his visor. "Hey, what happened with Thoth, anyway? I keep forgetting to ask."
"He served the purpose I needed him for," Durandal said. "The S'pht'Kr said something about taking him with them on K'lia, as there was no point leaving him on a dying world, and may they enjoy his company more than I did. Insufferable geezer."
Mark snorted. Durandal calling anyone else "insufferable" was pretty rich. He wiped blood off his helmet - damn armor needed cleaning again already - and headed down the hall. "And you think this one's going to be less weird?"
"I think that Seshat is in an entirely different position, and built with a different purpose. Exactly what that purpose was - well, if you'd hurry up, I can find out."
"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying."
The first room of circuits was right where Durandal had said it would be. Mark wiped out the Pfhor soldiers that tried to ambush him there and found the switch that brought a dim greenish light flickering through the tall glassy pillars lining the room. To get to the second he had to go through two more large connected rooms filled with Pfhor, which did a number on his ammo stores, but Durandal dumped a decent load of assault rifle clips and shotgun shells into the second room after it was cleared. Maybe the comm link wasn't such a bad idea, after all, if it meant more timely supplies.
Mark started to open the door that should lead to the next circuit cluster, then paused and looked around the room again. Big, blue-gray, brightly lit, floor covered in Pfhor guts and corpses - nothing out of the ordinary, but there was something about it that unsettled him. Something - maybe the way the lights flickered, maybe the shape of the room - something he couldn't put a finger on.
Shit, he was getting jumpy over nothing. He opened the door and one of the fucking enormous blue-armored Hunters charged at him. "Son of a -!" He leaped away from the swarm of bolts it was firing, managed to get the rocket launcher up and got off two rockets before the door slid shut. He backed up - those bastards exploded no matter what you hit them with - and drew the fusion pistol. When the door opened again he hit the giant Hunter with an overcharge and the rest of the battery, reloaded and emptied the next battery, and ducked into the hallway between the two big rooms right as the Hunter burst into goo, bits of armor clattering to the ground.
Mark went through the door with fusion pistol at the ready, but the circuit room was empty; he hit the switch and watched the pillars light up.
"Nice job," Durandal said.
"Thanks. Hey, about earlier -"
"Forget it, I'm willing to make the occasional allowance for your feeble intellect. There's a teleport pad down the hallway that brought you to these rooms; go find it and I'll use it to send you to the next circuit clusters for activation. Several S'pht will be joining you there along with a few of the more tolerant S'pht'Kr, so be on your best behavior and don't make them angry."
"Gotcha."
It took him a couple minutes to find the white-tiled teleport pad, which had been cunningly hidden behind a bunch of steel half-columns. He switched back to his pistols as he edged his way through the columns, since anything else had too big a risk of accidentally hitting one of the S'pht, and stepped onto the pad prepared to run into anything.
---
He couldn't see.
Okay, that he hadn't been prepared for. He blinked a few times and tried waving his hand in front of his face; nothing. Just the helmet readouts and pitch-black darkness all around him - no, wait, when he stepped forward and turned around there was a faint glimmer illuminating a teleport pad just like the one he'd started on. He stepped back onto it, but it didn't activate, and it wasn't producing enough light to see anything besides the very bottom of the walls around the pad.
Great. Just great. "Durandal? Think you got your destinations mixed up, this place is completely shut down."
The comm link hissed with static. Mark frowned and tapped the side of the helmet. "Durandal? You there? C'mon, buddy, don't leave me hanging."
If nothing else the "buddy" ought to have pissed Durandal off enough to get a response, but the comm was still pure static. He couldn't hear anything else around him, either; the silence was as absolute as the dark. Mark muttered a curse just to break it and the sound stopped dead without a single echo.
"Fuck, this is going to be a fun detour," he said, because the sound of his own voice was better than nothing, and started feeling his way around. Next time Durandal wanted to borrow the armor, Mark was going to ask him to install a flashlight.
The teleport pad turned out to be at the end of a narrow hallway no wider than it was. He felt his way down it until he came to a gap on the right side, where he stopped to listen for any sounds and investigate the new direction. He heard nothing after standing still for a full minute and began feeling his way around the gap. About the same width as most Jjaro doorways, sharp metal corners on both sides but warm rough stone at the top and bottom, no grooves or other signs of a door, no switches, a cool round bubble on the ceiling that might be a lighting fixture, a scraping sound from - oh, shit, that hadn't been him.
He backed up till his shoulders hit the wall and raised the pistols and listened really, really hard.
Another faint scraping noise came from the gap, and then a cluster of eight dull green points of light appeared in front of him, near the ceiling. Fuck. Mark started edging towards the inactive teleporter pad; the lights got closer with a louder metallic scrape and a clicking sound. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Maybe he should try talking to whatever it was, take the peaceful road for -
The hall lights flickered on and for one second Mark froze, staring at an equally still giant spider monster with too many thick hairy legs and two pairs of spindly mechanical arms and one huge pair of sharp, toothed mandibles that clicked together once as Mark watched.
Then it lunged at him as the lights went out again and he fired, gunpowder flashes reflecting off the thing's carapace and he could fucking feel the mandibles chattering in front of his goddamn face as he backed up and he'd emptied four fucking clips into the thing and it hadn't slowed, shit. He jammed the pistols back into their holsters and jumped back away from another snap of the mandibles and grabbed the assault rifle, fired another full clip at it and three grenades and then he backed right into the wall and the monster leaped on him and knocked the rifle out of his hands. Its mandibles bit right through his shields and clamped down on the helmet with a godawful screech and he kicked at its belly, reached for anything that could shoot and pulled the shotguns and jammed them into the monster's stomach and fired and fired and fired.
Finally the thing convulsed and a cold, greasy liquid splashed over Mark's chest; the mandibles relaxed and slipped off his helmet, and he shoved its body away just as the lights flickered back on. The thing didn't look any better dead than alive. Its hide was a dull gunmetal green with dark purple spots and was hard as metal, clanging when he kicked it. The points of light he had seen were its eyes, clustered at the front of its bulbous head, and the fluid leaking from its abdomen was thick and gray.
"Ugly fucker," Mark said, but now his voice sounded too loud and he wished he hadn't spoken. Fuck, what if there were more of these things? There probably were; he couldn't be lucky enough to have run into the only one.
The lights kept flickering, but stayed on. Small blessings. He picked up the assault rifle again, checked his ammunition, and cursed, mentally this time. He'd used more ammo taking that bastard down than he wanted to think about, and his shields were in a bad state. "Durandal," he whispered, "enough fooling around, get me out of here." Still nothing but static on the comm link, goddamn useless piece of junk. Maybe if he could find a terminal, talk to Durandal that way...
The teleport pad's corridor was a dead end; the hall that the monster had been lurking in was longer and he could see more doors and hallways branching off it, lit with the same dim grayish, unsteady light. He didn't see any more spider monsters, but he wasn't about to bet that they weren't there somewhere, and he went down the hall with shotguns cocked and eyes peeled.
He passed one short, empty dead-end hall. One hall almost too narrow for him to squeeze into, also empty. One broader hallway that looked like it might lead somewhere and had a couple branches of its own, but when he stopped to get a better look he heard another scrape echo from the far end and slipped past as fast as he could without making a sound. There had to be a terminal close by, and he had to get to it without running into anything else. Passed another dead-end hallway and a closed door, hit the end of the hallway where it split into two. Turned his head to check the right branch and saw the back of a spider monster at the end of it. Fuck.
It didn't move. He risked a glance to the left and thank fuck, he could see the edge of a terminal around the corner. Nice and quiet, he could do this without waking up the big nasty... He kept his eyes on the unmoving monster as he slowly backed down the left hallway, putting his boots down with utmost care at each step so he didn't make any noise. The monster didn't turn around, kept not turning around, and after an eternity his heel touched against the wall and he could turn and get out of sight to access the terminal. About fucking time. He logged on, ready to bitch out Durandal for losing him in this hellhole of a maze and get back to work - only when the logon screen popped up, it wasn't Durandal's icon. And the text wasn't the usual bright green - hell, it wasn't even English, just a screen full of alien symbols in dull gray.
Seshat was already awake. And she didn't look happy.
Next chapter.
Marathon, characters, etc. © Bungie, and omg I really wish I could go home right now and get my beta code for Destiny BUT I CAN'T. D:
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/185735.html .