'The World Where Yesternight You Died' Part 24
Okay, here we go! Last post for tonight, not *quite* the last of the story. I say 'one more' but who the fuck knows, once i get typing.
Thank you, everybody, who is still reading. I deeply, deeply appreciate it. And thank you, my dearest Snow, for your unflagging encouragement. :)
At AO3.
...but it is what You are;
in your own image as some
lexicographer supposed.
the face, both he and she,
the odd ambition, the desire
to reach beyond the stars
is You. All You, all You
the loneliness, the perfect
imperfection.
Lucille Clifton - 'Brothers'
The six ships that had been salvaged and restored stood off from the arcology in a loose formation: the Seker and Wu Zetian to the zenith, Matangi and Kanagatucko to the nadir of the arcology, and the Apsû and Hissa Hila fanned out wide of the entry point the Quo had designated for the incoming ship. Each was crewed with as full a complement as they could muster, having had to borrow from the arcology staff, at the end, to get full bridge crews.
Angels, too, in every bit of armor they had got live, were on board ships or in the halls of the arcology. Angels even out in the skimmers, cobbled together gun emplacements welded to the dome-studded hulls. Jared had been out there, cold-welder waldo and magnetic boots, the first among many, a steady, steadying presence in the 'net.
The Quo had objected, quietly, but Jensen had told them…. Well, Jensen had shouted and gotten himself too damn angry to talk, and Raleigh and Morgan and Lt. Dee had taken over, sending Jensen off with Kane and Ji-yun for a few minutes of cool-down.
But the others had made it clear: regardless of the Quo's dedication to nonviolence, the Company wouldn't hesitate to use force. Nor would the military, regardless of the Federation's stance on non-human, sentient life. Angels were a threat, and they'd view the Quo as either dupes, co-conspirators, or prisoners. 'Acceptable losses' in all categories.
They made it clear the arcology would not fire first, and they would do their best to be defensive only. But they weren't going to die under fire, either, just to placate the Quo.
The Quo, once they'd accepted that things might get hot, had spent most of the time securing the arcology, particularly the children and obs-con, and doing some kind of records transfer with bundles of hair-fine, glowing filaments, fireflies, and dense, crystalline globes of the same material that made up the consoles.
The entire arcology was locked down, and in some cases powered down; silent and still and waiting.
Jensen was on the Apsû, in reclaimed armor, his Angels around him, watching the countdown on the ship's screen and feeling the steady, warm pulse of Jared in the 'net. Jared was in obs-con with the Diaboli and Morgan and Taichou-san, a weapon on his hip that was just about as nerve-wracking, to him, as the wait. The 'let me tell you about what stupid/dangerous/funny thing I did my first firefight' stories from the other Angels had flown thick and fast - their notion of helping. They'd left off when Jensen had all but growled down the 'net, taking pity on Jared's locked-down, wobbling panic, and the growing twitchiness of the greenies.
Here we go here we go stand by, ready-steady, all to me, stand by stand by…. The murmuring surge of acknowledgement, from every Angel and crew, was like being drowned in a wave of heat and pressure and hum, and Jensen let it drown him, lift him, wash through. They were ready.
"Counting down. One minute. All ships, all personnel, brace and hold. Iynght srahzss in fifty seconds...forty seconds...thirty seconds….
When it came, it was as unsettling as it had been the first time. Once again, everything seemed to simply...stop. The entire universe shivered to a halt; every molecule and atom, every quark, every neutrino, seeming to spin out into its own orbit, dancing to the low, heavy thrum of the underlying pulse of the universe.
And then everything snapped back, and the 'net surged with reaction. Jensen let it go - let them react - stayed the calm center, reassuring. Just like before, when we got you, no harm, no harm….
Then the light, the vector, opened into space some five thousand k from their position; a blossoming pinhole into the Between that flared out, blinding, and then was gone.
And, in its place, a monster. A ship so huge, Jensen couldn't actually take it all in; it was simply there, like a moonlet or a comet, blocking out stars, bulking over them all.
The 'net surged again, and so did coms - instant chatter, questions, exclamations, overlapping each other and drowning each other out, and the 'net ratcheting up to simply noise; too much, too fast.
Jensen gathered up every ounce of power he could feel, feeding off what the 'net was pushing at him, and sent it back, in one hard, sharp push, like a slap. Com silent come silent com silent "Com silence!" He saw the Angels near him recoil, but the 'net went quiet, only the soft, hushed hiss of an open channel.
Com-chatter stopped, as well, and Jensen stared at the console floating beside him, trying to make sense of the picture that ladar was painting. It was...impossible. The ship bulked nearly as big as the main structure of the arcology in tonnage displacement. A dark wedge shape, it was leaking radiation, skip-charge, and heat into space like an open door. No running lights, no hail - nothing. It seemed…
Dead. DoA. Qemuel, it's dead. Morgan, and then Kane, and then others, the 'net whispering, and then over coms, Taichou-san.
"Apsû, we need a closer reading on this, there's too much shielding. Are you prepared to do a fly-by?"
"I-" Jensen stopped, and looked at the console again, and then out the shielded port he'd stationed himself at, one of the only ports on the ship. The invader was barely visible, more an absence than anything else, blotting out the stars.
"T'ssmg'ku," Jensen said, giving the arcology name his best try. "USF Apsû and Hissa Hila will be doing a fly-by in preparation for boarding. Stand by." On ship-com then; "Kanagatucko and Matangi, form up, defensive stance on my location, Wu Zetian and Seker, to Hissa Hila, position and hold. We are doing a fly-by, no contact, scan for skip or weapon's array to go bright, copy." Dopplered in the 'net, coms all but unnecessary, except to warn the arcology of what they were doing.
"Copy," came back, Angels and arcology staff and troop-ship crews alike, steady in coms. The 'net...seethed, but no one was talking, not yet. Not much.
Careful oh careful you me us love you us from Jared, a thread of extra warmth, and Jensen sent it back. He felt Kane and Five and Jinx and Ji-yun, all the others, his command, affirming, sending the ready-steady, solidly on his six.
"Apsû and Hissa Hila control, when you're ready - take us out."
"On count, five, four, three-" The ships moved, and Jensen braced himself, his jerry-rigged armor ticking around him, the 'net humming in his bones. He watched as the towering silhouette of the other ship eclipsed them, a meter at a time.
"It's been breached," Jensen said, a murmur into coms, his gaze fixed on the vid that was spooling across his console. "Hissa Hila com, do you see any impact damage? Ionization, scorching, anything?"
Com hissed and popped, and Jensen switched camera views, scanning.
"Negative, Qemuel, nothing. Not detecting anything. It looks as if- I think they vented. Those are internal breaches," Captain Onray said, a drop-ship Captain promoted fast and far, piloting a ship fifty times what the drop-ships had been. Jensen could hear the tightly controlled nerves in her voice, the shiver in the 'net from her that she fought to keep under control. He dragged the zoom up, leaning in, looking closer.
"I think you're right, Hissa Hila. Five, Jinx, Kane - boarding party. We'll use the skimmers. Fifteen minutes."
"Aye," came back, through coms and 'net, and Jensen stood there a moment longer, watching the long, pocked flank of the other ship glide past, dark and torn, seemingly empty. Then he strode away, armor hissing and clicking, down the corridor and down the lift, to the skimmer bay.
They nosed in through two of the hull breaches; three skimmers from the Apsû, three from the Hissa Hila, five Angels per, except for Jensen's skimmer, because he hadn't felt right, taking command of a squad away from his Angels. They passed through the hull, past the exposed layers of titanium-tungsten, glassine and plex and aluminum-alloy, eight meters deep. Inside - relatively inside - the walls in the broad beams of the skimmer's searchlights showed marks of fire, and the deep, too-smooth gouges left by plasma-pulse rifles. And there was what looked like blood - dark, red-brown smears of it - over some of the flooring, and here and there on the remains of consoles and walls.
The 'net hummed with speculation and curiosity, and Jared surfaced from that hum, a little stronger, a little closer.
Fight? Defense? Did they get attacked?
Recon, Jensen thought, and sent that impulse out, barely remembering to use coms, as well, to keep the arcology informed. "T'ssmg'ku, we're going to recon. Please monitor all power relays and the array."
"Su, su, su," came back, Hakase in control in obs-com.
"Scan says the seals are intact. There's atmo on the other side of the bulkhead," Jinx said, scan image and readings rippling through the 'net.
"Same readings here," came from the Hissa Hila skimmers, docked in a similar cavity about one hundred and fifty meters aft.
"Acknowledged. Arm and out, two minutes," Jensen said, and the pilot let the skimmer drift forward and down, magnetic tethers snaking free and attaching, reeling them in as close as possible to the massive pressure-seal that closed off the section. A single green light glowed above it, steady and unblinking and Jensen wondered just what they'd find. Federation Marines, or ANGELs, or just...more nothing? Blood, maybe bodies….
Jensen shook himself just a little, then stalked over to the weapon's locker to claim his rifle alongside everyone else. They hadn’t been able to activate the armors’ integrated weapons systems, so they'd had to improvise, taking the systems out altogether and refitting them for hand-held use. That had taken up a lot of time and energy, the last few months, but most of the Angels were now as comfortable with weapons they could accidentally drop (hilariously often, in Kane's case, until he got the hang of it), as they had been with weapons that all but grew out of their suits.
The skimmer's hatch slid aside, and they trooped out. With a little push of directional jets, they were sinking to the scarred floor of the compartment, magnetic boots latching on, HUD systems flickering to life and integrating scan information from the skimmers. It took two minutes, maybe less, to make it to the deep-set air lock in the pressure seal. Their suitlights didn't seem to penetrate more than a meter into the utter blackness of the powered-down ship, and Jensen shivered, just a little. So dark, so empty. So dead.
Malik moved forward with his toolkit and dataspot to bypass the command codes, and get the hatch open on their side. If it conformed to most troop-ship designs, it would be big enough for at least a squad in full rig, maybe two.
Bypassing, from the other skimmers, their three squads deployed, ANGELs Jensen knew only through the 'net, and rig testing in the halls of the arcology. But they were steady, veterans; he could trust them.
Kane was strong in the 'net, his energy hyped, through first, on point, aggressive. Jensen confirmed it with a nod and something in the 'net that, to Jensen, always felt like a yelp of encouragement: a baring of teeth in a feral grin. The lights over the keypad blinked a little dance and then stuttered to solid green. Malik disengaged his dataspot and tucked it away, got his rifle up and ready, and tapped out the open code.
"First squad ready to lock through. Fourth? Where are you?"
"Bypass is a go, on your count, Qemuel", from fourth squad leader, a tall, scarred ANGEL who called themselves Coy.
Ready steady. Count of three-
"On me. Three, two, go," Jensen ordered. Malik hit the code, and the airlock opened.
As the door moved aside, they all braced, but there was nothing. Just the airlock, empty of anything but a few bits of trash, a glittering puff of metallic dust that tumbled out as the atmo inside escaped. Kane and his squad moved in, and the lock slid shut behind them, a rumble they could all feel through their boots.
Ready steady code is a go pressure stable opening be sharp here we go go go
And lock empty, bypassing secondary hatch, ready ready on watch all go go go from Coy.
"Airlock is pressurized. Opening the inner airlock way," Kane said, Coy echoing. The 'net showed them the door moving aside, showed the sudden stab of suitlights into blackness and then-
Fuck fuck fuck get in here, Qemuel, now, bodies, there are bodies-
"Casualties on the ground," Kane said, his voice devoid of the sick urgency that had flooded the 'net, and Jensen felt his heart start to pound.
"We have bodies, repeat, bodies on the ground. All squads lock through," Arm and up, go go go from Coy, crisp and sure, the 'net jumping with adrenaline.
"Kane, Coy, report. T'ssmg'ku, do you copy?"
"Su, su, su. Hear 'ou."
Angels, Angel armor. But it's wrong, Kane thought, and images were in the 'net, a go-stop-go montage of spot-lit images. Tumbled bodies, rent-open armor, fire-scored walls, and blood, in dried smears and splashes. The bodies of Angels and what looked like Federation Marines, left where they'd died, in tangled heaps. Parts, near the pressure seal; someone had engaged that massive door without warning, and some of the troops had been caught as it had thundered into place, flesh and bone no match for tonnes of glassine and titanium-tungsten alloy.
"Multiple bodies, no lifesigns. I see Angels, what looks like...ships crew...at least a platoon's worth," Kane said, and the 'net surged and murmured and hissed as the images went out.
Angels. Seem like Angels. And Federation Marines. I see ionization, I see plasma-pulse burns. There was a firefight, Coy sent - rattled that off in coms, more military than most, and Jensen caught the suggestion of a long history of service, a Marine before they were an Angel; a soldier most of their lives.
Kane was right; there was something off about the Angel armor, and Jensen gritted his teeth and waited, impatiently, while Jinx's squad locked through, and then it was Five's turn, third squad, Jensen crowding in at the back. The 'net tingled and hissed, like a go-pack but not, and Jared was right there, so close inside that it was almost as if he were inside, and Jensen was grateful for that.
The airlock opened, and it took a moment for Jensen's HUD and suit light to steady, and feed him the images.
Fuck fuck
"Please recon and relay, what do you see, Qemuel?" obs-con asked, firefly translation, and Jensen wanted to say, to tell, but….
The bodies strewn in the tall, wide corridor were days dead, maybe more. Shattered armor showed black and purple-red glimpses of corruption; more lightly-armored Marines already distilling down into slumped and puddling mounds, skin slipping, lips curled dryly back from teeth, eyes sunken to nothing. Nightmare glimpses in the sweep of the suit lights.
"Move, everybody move," Jensen snapped, sweat running down under the armor, his heart pounding, pounding. "Scan for lifesigns and get going. Head for the bridge." Don't look Jared don't look they're dead, they're dead…
"T'ssmg'ku, we have multiple casualties, Marines and Angels, no crew yet, no lifesigns. Vid feed to your consoles now. Stand by, we're heading to the bridge."
"Su, su, su,", Hakase said, after a long pause, and Jensen was sure there was sorrow in that hissing sigh.
"No life signs, continuing scan." What's wrong with them? Five said, the 'net flooded with suit-lit images of weirdly formed skulls and too many teeth and legs that were- that bent all wrong.
Dogleg, came through from Morgan in the 'net, and an image of an animal, with legs that bent backward instead of forward, four legs and a long nose and teeth…. Dog, from somewhere, animal not human what what what. Jensen tuned it out and started walking fast, Kane and his squad to the fore, down the long corridor of the dead.
The bridge had been vented. There was nothing there, nothing but blackness and ripped-out wires, waving in slow undulations from tattered walls and consoles. Malik said secondary observer would have access, probably ship's logs, blackbox, something. So they headed there instead, a couple levels up, through lightless corridors and sealed rooms; through more bodies, hundreds of them, locking through airlocks and seals that had cut the ship into partitions against vacuum, but hadn't saved anyone.
In a couple of places, emergency lighting strobed and stuttered, making false movement out of the shadows, making the 'net jump with adrenalin.
Sec-obs here, hooking up, stand by Malik was all business in the 'net and on coms, and Jensen sighed in relief and pushed up to the bank of consoles, watching. Malik stood bent over an open console, toolkit and dataspot in hand, a frown on his dark face, the slim beard highlighting the cut of his jaw behind the shield of his helmet.
"Lotta data here," Malik said, something spiking in the 'net. Got readings, got life-sign, someone's here
"Where? How many?" Jensen asked, and he could feel Coy, Five, all the squads attention like a shivery, hot-cold prickle through the 'net. Malik slid data from one console to another and opened a map with a flick of his fingers, holo hovering blue-white and jumpy in the mote-dusted air.
"Not sure. Lot of shielding. Here." Schematic con-three. Looks like...level fifteen, aft bulkhead-
Looks like quarters, Jinx cut in, and agreement rippled through the 'net. Crew or troop or Angel.
Looks like. Gotta get there. Five-?
Faster in the skimmers. Drop-ship access was blown here. The schematic lit up, rotating and enlarging at Five's manipulation. Go right in.
Agree. Xaphan, need you with Jensen said, unwilling to leave Malik behind.
"I can relay to the Quo. They can pull and sort faster than my 'spot, anyway. Take me a minute to set it up," Malik said, and Jensen nodded.
"T'ssmg'ku, this is Qemuel. Stand by for a data uplink from the ship's black box. All squads will be moving out, returning to the skimmers to access the aft bulkhead. We have a lifesign. Please continue monitoring all power and skip-array output. Do you copy?"
"Su, su, su. Aaall dark, no life," Hakase said, and Jensen acknowledged. He took one more look at the data schematic, and softly pulsing, amber-blue spot that indicated life. He could feel the attention of every Angel in the 'net, a soft thrumming of speculation and energy, the desire to go go go, to move, to know.
Time to go.
The breach of the drop-ship bay was more total destruction than a deliberate drop. It looked as if someone had tried to deploy a ship, but fire had instead caught it, ripping it to scrap. Debris moved along with the slow drift of the ship, caught in her wake in the Between and not let go once the Quo had yanked it into the now. Another sector seal showed beyond, deeply scored by fire.
All six skimmers fit in easily, with room to spare, and they settled into position, tethers locked. The squads moved out again in a repeat of their earlier recon, thirty soldiers in tight formation, weapons charged and ready. And Jensen, ghosting in the very back, the pressure from Kane, and Jinx, and Five in the 'net forcing him to the rear - most protected. Coy, without a word, had taken up the six position, guarding Jensen's back, and Jensen...wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
Mild, unsurprised approval flowed out from the 'net, and Jensen had a moment of complete unreality, stalking in the clicking, humming armor, something that - maybe a year ago, as he'd lived it - he thought he'd lost forever.
There were fewer bodies here, a profound relief. They moved through the air-locks and corridors easily, hitting that long, almost bounding lope that the armor and ANGEL bodies could create and maintain for hours and kilometers, following the little firefly of light and life on the schematic that Malik had sent to everyone's HUD.
Quarters, it's quarters, Kane thought, sudden burst of images in the 'net, of spot-lit bunks and mess and showers. But all of it was laid out, row upon row, open and impersonal and dark. The walls were the uniform dull-grey of every Federation ship ever made, but no paint, no images, no graffiti lightened the sameness, or made borders and nests and territories.
Like the barracks on Salome, Jared thought, little shiver of cold through the 'net, and others were remarking on it, uneasy - unhappy. There were a few bodies here; the same strange, altered Angels, with their wide, fanged mouths and back-bending legs. Now, without armor, they could see that the skin was a sort of ashy grey, the genitals...shrunk, somehow. Small and soft looking, too smooth. The spine of one body showed multiple ports, a chain of them all down the knobs of bone, and Jensen felt himself baring his teeth at that, furious and sickened.
What did they do what did they do wrong all wrong fucking Company look at them wrong no, no, no
Stand down stand down stand by, Jensen thought, pushing with all his strength, shoving back the growing, buzzing tide of the 'net: anger, and fear, and a kind of frantic horror.
"Qemuel, repor', what sssee?" Hakase asked, a little sputter of static in Jensen's ear, and Jensen took a long breath, rounding a corner, heading for what looked like operations, or com central for the Angels on board.
"We're in what appears to be the Angel barracks," Jensen said. "Coming up on...looks like ops, or central. That's where our life-sign is. ETA...about three minutes, give or take."
"Su, su, su," Hakase hummed, and Jensen caught, dopplered, a moment's conversation between Jared, Raleigh, and Alinx, coms and 'net, before Hakase shut the connection. If there was something wrong, I'd know, it's fine-
Ops, moving in, second and fourth squad, swing right, third and fifth left, Coy, you're six, stay on Qemuel, on point, moving, this is ops and that was Kane, taking charge, so damn good - so far beyond his first, shaky day or two as squad leader, so long ago. Jensen was so damn proud of him, and didn't care that it went out through the 'net, a warm pulse of love and good. Jinx echoed it, and Malik and Five and Sous - all of them.
Respect and acknowledgment from Coy, and their squads - and a slow surge, out and back, from the entire 'net, as Kane's story was sent, broadcast, and Angels approved.
Us we family good careful, oh careful, safe safe safe from Jared, unmistakable, and Kane took those last few steps into ops, the whole exchange having taken maybe five seconds, five heartbeats.
"Moving in, stand by, T'ssmg'ku," Jensen said, and then they were in.
Standard ops, with a half circle of ten to fifteen stations to monitor troops, the ship, bridge ops, drops ships, and Angels, in action or on stand-by. A place Jensen hadn't spent much time in, on Tiamat; a place mostly for the LT, Gunny Morgan, ship crew. But even in the shifting glows of the suit lights, it was obvious that an effort had been made, here more than any other place, to wreak utter destruction.
The consoles were shattered, the stations gouged by plasma-pulse blasts as well as what looked like armored fingers. Chairs ripped from their anchorages and crushed or broken to pieces, even the walls blasted open, wires and circuit boards and conduits spilling out like intestines.
And in the center, something else. Something new, that had every Angel circling around, edging in close, playing the sodium-white of their spots over it, the HUD showing the end of the line. The life sign they were reading came from here.
It was a sort of platform, raised up above the rest of the stations, lit by a single dim, blue-white glow. It seemed to hold something like a chair and generation tube combined; skeins of wire and tubes and conduits roping the base and twisting up and up and around, and depending from the overhead. The tube itself was mistily opaque, as if filled with some kind of smoke, or frosted over.
What is it what is it someone? alive? query query query
Stand by, recon, hold the line, Jensen thought, and stared upward. "We need to-" Get up there, Jinx, Kane
On it,, in tandem, and Kane slung his rifle and started upward, clinging to the ropes of tubes and wires, Jinx close behind. It seemed that maybe the platform should lower itself, or sink into the deck, but the destruction of ops had destroyed the mechanism.
Lifesign is...weak, human...someone inside. Malik, need you, get this open-
Malik, summoned, climbed up as well, his armor humming, and the squads stood like icons around the platform, every faced turned upward, every light. Jensen watched and felt Malik bypass a keypad, force a locked door to slide aside. A puff of chilly, steaming atmosphere curled out of the tube.
Kane leaned in, shoving at a mess of lines and wires, dragging them up and out to reveal a figure, human, hurt. There was blood. There were...IV lines, oxygen, clamps, and the oily-black gleam of polycarbonate bones, an armature of replacement limbs, bare necessity, and a bare, pale skull, a face.
Jensen - all of them - saw this, in the bone-white glare of the spot, in the fuzzing blue-green-red of the HUD. They saw Kane's armored hand reach out, and carefully, gently, tip the face up, pushing aside a clotted mess of wires and sensors. It was a strong-jawed, high-nosed face, its skin gone the sickly sort of ash-grey that dark skin goes when the person is ill. Full lips were parched nearly white, cracked, with old blood gathered in the seam. Dark eyes were filmed over, blue-grey, blind, half shut. Their lids flickered, their chest hitched in shallow breaths; they were alive, barely. But that face...that face.
"Sinna!" Kane bellowed, and it whiplashed through the 'net: the face, the person, the Angel. Sinna It’s Kee, Kee, Kee
Can't be, she died, saw it, knew it, how what Morgan fucking report, stand by stand down fucking hell- Jensen stood, knees locked, as Sinna shoved past, brutal in her haste, and all but leapt up onto the platform. Kane fell back, fast, and then Sinna was bending down over the tube, her fury and terror in the 'net so loud everyone was wincing away, but taking it - letting her - as Kee's story spilled out in the 'net.
Some op, on some world in some Stick assault, dead and gone in the 'net and on the ship, Tiamat Angels yanked off-world before they could recover any bodies, another ship moving in, other troops. And somehow she was here, years and light years away, locked into this ship, barely alive, barely herself.
Jensen ignored Sinna's output for a moment - it was too focused, it hurt too fucking much - to snatch images from Jinx, from Kane, from the HUD. Wires and sensors from the platform-tube went into ports in Kee’s skull, her neck, her arms - no, arm, because the right one was gone, replaced by a polycarbonate skeleton, no attempt at anything remotely human. Her long, too-thin torso, behind bands of glassine, was the same: ports and sensors, wires and tubes. Her right leg was gone, as well, and half of her left, and it was as if the whole sensor array of Angel armor had been stripped out and plugged directly into her flesh and bones. As if they were trying to make her into armor, or machine. Fuck, what had they done to her?
It was horrifying. It was obscene... and she was alive. Alive
Jensen swallowed against a sudden surge of sickness, his gut churning, his heart pounding. Panting hard, he wrestled his own emotions under control, half-buried under the furious, boiling cloud of Sinna's.
How how, dead, we saw Morgan how how Kane and Jinx, Max - every Tiamat Angel - was suddenly turning, in bewildered fury, on Morgan, and it hit the 'net and rebounded, story shared, outrage shared, the 'net humming and buzzing and roaring.
And Jensen didn't care, he just - didn't. Couldn't. Kee was here, she was alive, she was the only one alive, and they had to get her out.
"T'ssmg'ku, we have a survivor, Angel survivor, we need immediate medical evac, my location."
"Su, su, su," from Hakase, and then a firefly, piping translator voice. "Please scan and transmit on medico channel, medical personnel are deployed."
"Kee, oh, Kee." Querida, please, where are you, where-? She's not here, she's not, what did they do, what-? Sinna was getting frantic, overwhelming in the 'net, because Kee was not in the 'net; hadn't been, not for a moment, not the barest murmur since they'd found her. Totally blank, null. Silent.
Sinna clawed at her helmet, at the faceplate, and shoved it up, overriding a warning beep, cancelling the HUD in her 'net flow, so that instead, like a slap, something else was there in the 'net. The cold, clammy mist that was still curling up out of the tube, the stink of a body long untended. Chilled metal, burned plastics, blood, piss. Sinna slapped at the locks and disengaged the armored gauntlet on her left hand, and they all watched - felt - reached with her, as she stretched her hand out, the lip of the tube-thing a barrier at Sinna's chest, the edge of the helmet blocking part of her view. Sinna's hand - shaking, shaking - reached and then touched the gaunt, sweat-slick skin of Kee's cheek. The skin under Sinna's fingertips was cold, and Sinna stroked gently, leaning in as far as the armor would allow. Jensen's suit could hear sounds, now, unfiltered - tiny hissings, and cracklings, the thick, labored wheeze of Kee's lungs.
"Kee? Kee, it's Sinna. We have you, Querida , we have you."
Kee shivered, the skeletal fingers of her polycarbonate hand flexing, tapping on glassine and metal with sharp little clicks. Her clouded eyes lifted, searching, and Jensen could see sensors lifting, like fine hairs moving out from her naked skull. Her jaw worked, and then her lips moved, unseaming, cracked skin letting down a sudden, grotesquely bright thread of scarlet blood.
"Ssss….Ssin?" Kee said, and Jensen wanted to scream at the ruined hiss of a voice that had once sung to them, like something out of a dream.
"Oh, fuck, Kee, Kee- " Help her help her, now fuck, where are the fucking medicos?
On their way, Sinna, just stand down, wait, don't move her, might hurt her, we'll figure it out Jensen ordered, and Sinna curled down over Kee, her voice gone wobbly and cracked.
Malik. Get who you need, get this figured out, we have to get her out. Coy, take fourth, fifth and sixth squad, go recon, make sure there's nobody...nobody else. Keep the line open, take no chances, be careful. Five, Jinx, Kane - whoever Malik doesn't need, send them to quarters, scour the place, any intel - go, go, go!
The squads scattered except for the three Malik chose. Dataspots and tool kits came out, everyone trying to figure out how to get Kee out of the damn tube, out of the glassine and metal embrace of the ship, without killing her. Sinna stayed up on the platform, armor locked into a curve over Kee, her voice a whisper, her hand never leaving Kee's cheek, her jaw, the curve of her skull.
It took almost an hour to free Kee from the grip of the tube, and in that time, every squad reported back: no life. Not a single person remained alive on the ship but Kee, and it was obvious, after poking and prying and delving into every console and data storage undamaged enough to access, it was all deliberate. The Angels had mutinied, and destroyed the ship from the inside out. Why...was still a mystery.
When they could finally, delicately, lift Kee up and out of the tube, to immediately settle her into a sling of generation wrap and monitors, Jensen got the squads moving in an escort to the medico skimmer and then back to their own - back to the ships. A moment's consultation in the 'net, and then Jensen gave his orders. The ship's black box had given up everything, down to size and number of bolts in the hull, and they didn't need - couldn't get - anything else from it. There was enough power to set it moving, on course away from the arcology.
Malik and Jinx went to the skip array command, and set the overrides. In six hours - well clear of the arcology - the skip array would power up - and up, and up, and up. Death-charge, last skip. It would flare out of the Now and into the Between in fire and particulates and dust. Utter destruction. A fitting end for an Angel ship, and for the Angels who had died on board.
When Jensen got back to the arcology, he didn't bother to strip out of his armor, he just moved, striding through the corridors, trailing Kane and Jinx, Five and Malik and Sous, Grieve and Max in his wake. Straight to obs-con, straight to the gathering of Quo and Diaboli and arcology staff, he marched right up to Hakase. They were on level, now, with Jensen in the armor, eye to eye on the decking. The fireflies whirled and danced, tracing the armor seams, humming. Jensen unlocked the faceplate and shoved it back, dragging in a lungful of clean, cool, Quo-scented air.
"Hakase, we have to go. We have to go to Salome, to the Company. We have to end this. We have to do it now. Will you help us?"
The fireflies hummed and chimed, swarming, swarming, before settling, one by one, on Hakase's fur. They beaded Hakase’s throat and shoulders, hovering in a winking, glowing halo all around their head, whispering to them. Hakase's long snout tucked under, arms curled up, their hands tucked up against their throat as fireflies zipped in from all over the room, in and out again, faster than the eye could see. Eventually, Hakase lifted their head, arms going down and out, fingers uncurling to show the long, razored claws, snout lifting.
"Jen-zen," Hakase said. "Jen-zen. Yessss. We go. Iynght srahzss, to Sssal'o'eh. All. All of us."
"All-?" Jensen said, and Alinx sidled up, looking excited and a little sick.
"They mean-? They said… all of the them, too, yah? The Quo, the Diaboli, us - they're moving the whole fucking arcology, Jensen. All of it, yah?"
"Fucking hell," Jensen said, feeling gut-punched, surprise making his head spin for a moment. The 'net surged and rebounded and then settled, a steady hum of excitement, and from down in the med bay came the first trickle of information from Sinna. Kee was in, settled, they were working on her, she was alright, she was there.
"Hakase, I...thank you. Thank you, for helping us. Are you...sure?"
Hakase lifted their head, shoulders going back, their whole curved body stretching tall for a moment, out of the habitual slump most Quo affected. "Wheee are. I...am shhhure. Time, now, for thisss. For uss. Time to end it."
Part twenty-five.
Originally entered at https://tabaqui.dreamwidth.org/199042.html - comment where you please!
Thank you, everybody, who is still reading. I deeply, deeply appreciate it. And thank you, my dearest Snow, for your unflagging encouragement. :)
At AO3.
...but it is what You are;
in your own image as some
lexicographer supposed.
the face, both he and she,
the odd ambition, the desire
to reach beyond the stars
is You. All You, all You
the loneliness, the perfect
imperfection.
Lucille Clifton - 'Brothers'
The six ships that had been salvaged and restored stood off from the arcology in a loose formation: the Seker and Wu Zetian to the zenith, Matangi and Kanagatucko to the nadir of the arcology, and the Apsû and Hissa Hila fanned out wide of the entry point the Quo had designated for the incoming ship. Each was crewed with as full a complement as they could muster, having had to borrow from the arcology staff, at the end, to get full bridge crews.
Angels, too, in every bit of armor they had got live, were on board ships or in the halls of the arcology. Angels even out in the skimmers, cobbled together gun emplacements welded to the dome-studded hulls. Jared had been out there, cold-welder waldo and magnetic boots, the first among many, a steady, steadying presence in the 'net.
The Quo had objected, quietly, but Jensen had told them…. Well, Jensen had shouted and gotten himself too damn angry to talk, and Raleigh and Morgan and Lt. Dee had taken over, sending Jensen off with Kane and Ji-yun for a few minutes of cool-down.
But the others had made it clear: regardless of the Quo's dedication to nonviolence, the Company wouldn't hesitate to use force. Nor would the military, regardless of the Federation's stance on non-human, sentient life. Angels were a threat, and they'd view the Quo as either dupes, co-conspirators, or prisoners. 'Acceptable losses' in all categories.
They made it clear the arcology would not fire first, and they would do their best to be defensive only. But they weren't going to die under fire, either, just to placate the Quo.
The Quo, once they'd accepted that things might get hot, had spent most of the time securing the arcology, particularly the children and obs-con, and doing some kind of records transfer with bundles of hair-fine, glowing filaments, fireflies, and dense, crystalline globes of the same material that made up the consoles.
The entire arcology was locked down, and in some cases powered down; silent and still and waiting.
Jensen was on the Apsû, in reclaimed armor, his Angels around him, watching the countdown on the ship's screen and feeling the steady, warm pulse of Jared in the 'net. Jared was in obs-con with the Diaboli and Morgan and Taichou-san, a weapon on his hip that was just about as nerve-wracking, to him, as the wait. The 'let me tell you about what stupid/dangerous/funny thing I did my first firefight' stories from the other Angels had flown thick and fast - their notion of helping. They'd left off when Jensen had all but growled down the 'net, taking pity on Jared's locked-down, wobbling panic, and the growing twitchiness of the greenies.
Here we go here we go stand by, ready-steady, all to me, stand by stand by…. The murmuring surge of acknowledgement, from every Angel and crew, was like being drowned in a wave of heat and pressure and hum, and Jensen let it drown him, lift him, wash through. They were ready.
"Counting down. One minute. All ships, all personnel, brace and hold. Iynght srahzss in fifty seconds...forty seconds...thirty seconds….
When it came, it was as unsettling as it had been the first time. Once again, everything seemed to simply...stop. The entire universe shivered to a halt; every molecule and atom, every quark, every neutrino, seeming to spin out into its own orbit, dancing to the low, heavy thrum of the underlying pulse of the universe.
And then everything snapped back, and the 'net surged with reaction. Jensen let it go - let them react - stayed the calm center, reassuring. Just like before, when we got you, no harm, no harm….
Then the light, the vector, opened into space some five thousand k from their position; a blossoming pinhole into the Between that flared out, blinding, and then was gone.
And, in its place, a monster. A ship so huge, Jensen couldn't actually take it all in; it was simply there, like a moonlet or a comet, blocking out stars, bulking over them all.
The 'net surged again, and so did coms - instant chatter, questions, exclamations, overlapping each other and drowning each other out, and the 'net ratcheting up to simply noise; too much, too fast.
Jensen gathered up every ounce of power he could feel, feeding off what the 'net was pushing at him, and sent it back, in one hard, sharp push, like a slap. Com silent come silent com silent "Com silence!" He saw the Angels near him recoil, but the 'net went quiet, only the soft, hushed hiss of an open channel.
Com-chatter stopped, as well, and Jensen stared at the console floating beside him, trying to make sense of the picture that ladar was painting. It was...impossible. The ship bulked nearly as big as the main structure of the arcology in tonnage displacement. A dark wedge shape, it was leaking radiation, skip-charge, and heat into space like an open door. No running lights, no hail - nothing. It seemed…
Dead. DoA. Qemuel, it's dead. Morgan, and then Kane, and then others, the 'net whispering, and then over coms, Taichou-san.
"Apsû, we need a closer reading on this, there's too much shielding. Are you prepared to do a fly-by?"
"I-" Jensen stopped, and looked at the console again, and then out the shielded port he'd stationed himself at, one of the only ports on the ship. The invader was barely visible, more an absence than anything else, blotting out the stars.
"T'ssmg'ku," Jensen said, giving the arcology name his best try. "USF Apsû and Hissa Hila will be doing a fly-by in preparation for boarding. Stand by." On ship-com then; "Kanagatucko and Matangi, form up, defensive stance on my location, Wu Zetian and Seker, to Hissa Hila, position and hold. We are doing a fly-by, no contact, scan for skip or weapon's array to go bright, copy." Dopplered in the 'net, coms all but unnecessary, except to warn the arcology of what they were doing.
"Copy," came back, Angels and arcology staff and troop-ship crews alike, steady in coms. The 'net...seethed, but no one was talking, not yet. Not much.
Careful oh careful you me us love you us from Jared, a thread of extra warmth, and Jensen sent it back. He felt Kane and Five and Jinx and Ji-yun, all the others, his command, affirming, sending the ready-steady, solidly on his six.
"Apsû and Hissa Hila control, when you're ready - take us out."
"On count, five, four, three-" The ships moved, and Jensen braced himself, his jerry-rigged armor ticking around him, the 'net humming in his bones. He watched as the towering silhouette of the other ship eclipsed them, a meter at a time.
"It's been breached," Jensen said, a murmur into coms, his gaze fixed on the vid that was spooling across his console. "Hissa Hila com, do you see any impact damage? Ionization, scorching, anything?"
Com hissed and popped, and Jensen switched camera views, scanning.
"Negative, Qemuel, nothing. Not detecting anything. It looks as if- I think they vented. Those are internal breaches," Captain Onray said, a drop-ship Captain promoted fast and far, piloting a ship fifty times what the drop-ships had been. Jensen could hear the tightly controlled nerves in her voice, the shiver in the 'net from her that she fought to keep under control. He dragged the zoom up, leaning in, looking closer.
"I think you're right, Hissa Hila. Five, Jinx, Kane - boarding party. We'll use the skimmers. Fifteen minutes."
"Aye," came back, through coms and 'net, and Jensen stood there a moment longer, watching the long, pocked flank of the other ship glide past, dark and torn, seemingly empty. Then he strode away, armor hissing and clicking, down the corridor and down the lift, to the skimmer bay.
They nosed in through two of the hull breaches; three skimmers from the Apsû, three from the Hissa Hila, five Angels per, except for Jensen's skimmer, because he hadn't felt right, taking command of a squad away from his Angels. They passed through the hull, past the exposed layers of titanium-tungsten, glassine and plex and aluminum-alloy, eight meters deep. Inside - relatively inside - the walls in the broad beams of the skimmer's searchlights showed marks of fire, and the deep, too-smooth gouges left by plasma-pulse rifles. And there was what looked like blood - dark, red-brown smears of it - over some of the flooring, and here and there on the remains of consoles and walls.
The 'net hummed with speculation and curiosity, and Jared surfaced from that hum, a little stronger, a little closer.
Fight? Defense? Did they get attacked?
Recon, Jensen thought, and sent that impulse out, barely remembering to use coms, as well, to keep the arcology informed. "T'ssmg'ku, we're going to recon. Please monitor all power relays and the array."
"Su, su, su," came back, Hakase in control in obs-com.
"Scan says the seals are intact. There's atmo on the other side of the bulkhead," Jinx said, scan image and readings rippling through the 'net.
"Same readings here," came from the Hissa Hila skimmers, docked in a similar cavity about one hundred and fifty meters aft.
"Acknowledged. Arm and out, two minutes," Jensen said, and the pilot let the skimmer drift forward and down, magnetic tethers snaking free and attaching, reeling them in as close as possible to the massive pressure-seal that closed off the section. A single green light glowed above it, steady and unblinking and Jensen wondered just what they'd find. Federation Marines, or ANGELs, or just...more nothing? Blood, maybe bodies….
Jensen shook himself just a little, then stalked over to the weapon's locker to claim his rifle alongside everyone else. They hadn’t been able to activate the armors’ integrated weapons systems, so they'd had to improvise, taking the systems out altogether and refitting them for hand-held use. That had taken up a lot of time and energy, the last few months, but most of the Angels were now as comfortable with weapons they could accidentally drop (hilariously often, in Kane's case, until he got the hang of it), as they had been with weapons that all but grew out of their suits.
The skimmer's hatch slid aside, and they trooped out. With a little push of directional jets, they were sinking to the scarred floor of the compartment, magnetic boots latching on, HUD systems flickering to life and integrating scan information from the skimmers. It took two minutes, maybe less, to make it to the deep-set air lock in the pressure seal. Their suitlights didn't seem to penetrate more than a meter into the utter blackness of the powered-down ship, and Jensen shivered, just a little. So dark, so empty. So dead.
Malik moved forward with his toolkit and dataspot to bypass the command codes, and get the hatch open on their side. If it conformed to most troop-ship designs, it would be big enough for at least a squad in full rig, maybe two.
Bypassing, from the other skimmers, their three squads deployed, ANGELs Jensen knew only through the 'net, and rig testing in the halls of the arcology. But they were steady, veterans; he could trust them.
Kane was strong in the 'net, his energy hyped, through first, on point, aggressive. Jensen confirmed it with a nod and something in the 'net that, to Jensen, always felt like a yelp of encouragement: a baring of teeth in a feral grin. The lights over the keypad blinked a little dance and then stuttered to solid green. Malik disengaged his dataspot and tucked it away, got his rifle up and ready, and tapped out the open code.
"First squad ready to lock through. Fourth? Where are you?"
"Bypass is a go, on your count, Qemuel", from fourth squad leader, a tall, scarred ANGEL who called themselves Coy.
Ready steady. Count of three-
"On me. Three, two, go," Jensen ordered. Malik hit the code, and the airlock opened.
As the door moved aside, they all braced, but there was nothing. Just the airlock, empty of anything but a few bits of trash, a glittering puff of metallic dust that tumbled out as the atmo inside escaped. Kane and his squad moved in, and the lock slid shut behind them, a rumble they could all feel through their boots.
Ready steady code is a go pressure stable opening be sharp here we go go go
And lock empty, bypassing secondary hatch, ready ready on watch all go go go from Coy.
"Airlock is pressurized. Opening the inner airlock way," Kane said, Coy echoing. The 'net showed them the door moving aside, showed the sudden stab of suitlights into blackness and then-
Fuck fuck fuck get in here, Qemuel, now, bodies, there are bodies-
"Casualties on the ground," Kane said, his voice devoid of the sick urgency that had flooded the 'net, and Jensen felt his heart start to pound.
"We have bodies, repeat, bodies on the ground. All squads lock through," Arm and up, go go go from Coy, crisp and sure, the 'net jumping with adrenaline.
"Kane, Coy, report. T'ssmg'ku, do you copy?"
"Su, su, su. Hear 'ou."
Angels, Angel armor. But it's wrong, Kane thought, and images were in the 'net, a go-stop-go montage of spot-lit images. Tumbled bodies, rent-open armor, fire-scored walls, and blood, in dried smears and splashes. The bodies of Angels and what looked like Federation Marines, left where they'd died, in tangled heaps. Parts, near the pressure seal; someone had engaged that massive door without warning, and some of the troops had been caught as it had thundered into place, flesh and bone no match for tonnes of glassine and titanium-tungsten alloy.
"Multiple bodies, no lifesigns. I see Angels, what looks like...ships crew...at least a platoon's worth," Kane said, and the 'net surged and murmured and hissed as the images went out.
Angels. Seem like Angels. And Federation Marines. I see ionization, I see plasma-pulse burns. There was a firefight, Coy sent - rattled that off in coms, more military than most, and Jensen caught the suggestion of a long history of service, a Marine before they were an Angel; a soldier most of their lives.
Kane was right; there was something off about the Angel armor, and Jensen gritted his teeth and waited, impatiently, while Jinx's squad locked through, and then it was Five's turn, third squad, Jensen crowding in at the back. The 'net tingled and hissed, like a go-pack but not, and Jared was right there, so close inside that it was almost as if he were inside, and Jensen was grateful for that.
The airlock opened, and it took a moment for Jensen's HUD and suit light to steady, and feed him the images.
Fuck fuck
"Please recon and relay, what do you see, Qemuel?" obs-con asked, firefly translation, and Jensen wanted to say, to tell, but….
The bodies strewn in the tall, wide corridor were days dead, maybe more. Shattered armor showed black and purple-red glimpses of corruption; more lightly-armored Marines already distilling down into slumped and puddling mounds, skin slipping, lips curled dryly back from teeth, eyes sunken to nothing. Nightmare glimpses in the sweep of the suit lights.
"Move, everybody move," Jensen snapped, sweat running down under the armor, his heart pounding, pounding. "Scan for lifesigns and get going. Head for the bridge." Don't look Jared don't look they're dead, they're dead…
"T'ssmg'ku, we have multiple casualties, Marines and Angels, no crew yet, no lifesigns. Vid feed to your consoles now. Stand by, we're heading to the bridge."
"Su, su, su,", Hakase said, after a long pause, and Jensen was sure there was sorrow in that hissing sigh.
"No life signs, continuing scan." What's wrong with them? Five said, the 'net flooded with suit-lit images of weirdly formed skulls and too many teeth and legs that were- that bent all wrong.
Dogleg, came through from Morgan in the 'net, and an image of an animal, with legs that bent backward instead of forward, four legs and a long nose and teeth…. Dog, from somewhere, animal not human what what what. Jensen tuned it out and started walking fast, Kane and his squad to the fore, down the long corridor of the dead.
The bridge had been vented. There was nothing there, nothing but blackness and ripped-out wires, waving in slow undulations from tattered walls and consoles. Malik said secondary observer would have access, probably ship's logs, blackbox, something. So they headed there instead, a couple levels up, through lightless corridors and sealed rooms; through more bodies, hundreds of them, locking through airlocks and seals that had cut the ship into partitions against vacuum, but hadn't saved anyone.
In a couple of places, emergency lighting strobed and stuttered, making false movement out of the shadows, making the 'net jump with adrenalin.
Sec-obs here, hooking up, stand by Malik was all business in the 'net and on coms, and Jensen sighed in relief and pushed up to the bank of consoles, watching. Malik stood bent over an open console, toolkit and dataspot in hand, a frown on his dark face, the slim beard highlighting the cut of his jaw behind the shield of his helmet.
"Lotta data here," Malik said, something spiking in the 'net. Got readings, got life-sign, someone's here
"Where? How many?" Jensen asked, and he could feel Coy, Five, all the squads attention like a shivery, hot-cold prickle through the 'net. Malik slid data from one console to another and opened a map with a flick of his fingers, holo hovering blue-white and jumpy in the mote-dusted air.
"Not sure. Lot of shielding. Here." Schematic con-three. Looks like...level fifteen, aft bulkhead-
Looks like quarters, Jinx cut in, and agreement rippled through the 'net. Crew or troop or Angel.
Looks like. Gotta get there. Five-?
Faster in the skimmers. Drop-ship access was blown here. The schematic lit up, rotating and enlarging at Five's manipulation. Go right in.
Agree. Xaphan, need you with Jensen said, unwilling to leave Malik behind.
"I can relay to the Quo. They can pull and sort faster than my 'spot, anyway. Take me a minute to set it up," Malik said, and Jensen nodded.
"T'ssmg'ku, this is Qemuel. Stand by for a data uplink from the ship's black box. All squads will be moving out, returning to the skimmers to access the aft bulkhead. We have a lifesign. Please continue monitoring all power and skip-array output. Do you copy?"
"Su, su, su. Aaall dark, no life," Hakase said, and Jensen acknowledged. He took one more look at the data schematic, and softly pulsing, amber-blue spot that indicated life. He could feel the attention of every Angel in the 'net, a soft thrumming of speculation and energy, the desire to go go go, to move, to know.
Time to go.
The breach of the drop-ship bay was more total destruction than a deliberate drop. It looked as if someone had tried to deploy a ship, but fire had instead caught it, ripping it to scrap. Debris moved along with the slow drift of the ship, caught in her wake in the Between and not let go once the Quo had yanked it into the now. Another sector seal showed beyond, deeply scored by fire.
All six skimmers fit in easily, with room to spare, and they settled into position, tethers locked. The squads moved out again in a repeat of their earlier recon, thirty soldiers in tight formation, weapons charged and ready. And Jensen, ghosting in the very back, the pressure from Kane, and Jinx, and Five in the 'net forcing him to the rear - most protected. Coy, without a word, had taken up the six position, guarding Jensen's back, and Jensen...wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
Mild, unsurprised approval flowed out from the 'net, and Jensen had a moment of complete unreality, stalking in the clicking, humming armor, something that - maybe a year ago, as he'd lived it - he thought he'd lost forever.
There were fewer bodies here, a profound relief. They moved through the air-locks and corridors easily, hitting that long, almost bounding lope that the armor and ANGEL bodies could create and maintain for hours and kilometers, following the little firefly of light and life on the schematic that Malik had sent to everyone's HUD.
Quarters, it's quarters, Kane thought, sudden burst of images in the 'net, of spot-lit bunks and mess and showers. But all of it was laid out, row upon row, open and impersonal and dark. The walls were the uniform dull-grey of every Federation ship ever made, but no paint, no images, no graffiti lightened the sameness, or made borders and nests and territories.
Like the barracks on Salome, Jared thought, little shiver of cold through the 'net, and others were remarking on it, uneasy - unhappy. There were a few bodies here; the same strange, altered Angels, with their wide, fanged mouths and back-bending legs. Now, without armor, they could see that the skin was a sort of ashy grey, the genitals...shrunk, somehow. Small and soft looking, too smooth. The spine of one body showed multiple ports, a chain of them all down the knobs of bone, and Jensen felt himself baring his teeth at that, furious and sickened.
What did they do what did they do wrong all wrong fucking Company look at them wrong no, no, no
Stand down stand down stand by, Jensen thought, pushing with all his strength, shoving back the growing, buzzing tide of the 'net: anger, and fear, and a kind of frantic horror.
"Qemuel, repor', what sssee?" Hakase asked, a little sputter of static in Jensen's ear, and Jensen took a long breath, rounding a corner, heading for what looked like operations, or com central for the Angels on board.
"We're in what appears to be the Angel barracks," Jensen said. "Coming up on...looks like ops, or central. That's where our life-sign is. ETA...about three minutes, give or take."
"Su, su, su," Hakase hummed, and Jensen caught, dopplered, a moment's conversation between Jared, Raleigh, and Alinx, coms and 'net, before Hakase shut the connection. If there was something wrong, I'd know, it's fine-
Ops, moving in, second and fourth squad, swing right, third and fifth left, Coy, you're six, stay on Qemuel, on point, moving, this is ops and that was Kane, taking charge, so damn good - so far beyond his first, shaky day or two as squad leader, so long ago. Jensen was so damn proud of him, and didn't care that it went out through the 'net, a warm pulse of love and good. Jinx echoed it, and Malik and Five and Sous - all of them.
Respect and acknowledgment from Coy, and their squads - and a slow surge, out and back, from the entire 'net, as Kane's story was sent, broadcast, and Angels approved.
Us we family good careful, oh careful, safe safe safe from Jared, unmistakable, and Kane took those last few steps into ops, the whole exchange having taken maybe five seconds, five heartbeats.
"Moving in, stand by, T'ssmg'ku," Jensen said, and then they were in.
Standard ops, with a half circle of ten to fifteen stations to monitor troops, the ship, bridge ops, drops ships, and Angels, in action or on stand-by. A place Jensen hadn't spent much time in, on Tiamat; a place mostly for the LT, Gunny Morgan, ship crew. But even in the shifting glows of the suit lights, it was obvious that an effort had been made, here more than any other place, to wreak utter destruction.
The consoles were shattered, the stations gouged by plasma-pulse blasts as well as what looked like armored fingers. Chairs ripped from their anchorages and crushed or broken to pieces, even the walls blasted open, wires and circuit boards and conduits spilling out like intestines.
And in the center, something else. Something new, that had every Angel circling around, edging in close, playing the sodium-white of their spots over it, the HUD showing the end of the line. The life sign they were reading came from here.
It was a sort of platform, raised up above the rest of the stations, lit by a single dim, blue-white glow. It seemed to hold something like a chair and generation tube combined; skeins of wire and tubes and conduits roping the base and twisting up and up and around, and depending from the overhead. The tube itself was mistily opaque, as if filled with some kind of smoke, or frosted over.
What is it what is it someone? alive? query query query
Stand by, recon, hold the line, Jensen thought, and stared upward. "We need to-" Get up there, Jinx, Kane
On it,, in tandem, and Kane slung his rifle and started upward, clinging to the ropes of tubes and wires, Jinx close behind. It seemed that maybe the platform should lower itself, or sink into the deck, but the destruction of ops had destroyed the mechanism.
Lifesign is...weak, human...someone inside. Malik, need you, get this open-
Malik, summoned, climbed up as well, his armor humming, and the squads stood like icons around the platform, every faced turned upward, every light. Jensen watched and felt Malik bypass a keypad, force a locked door to slide aside. A puff of chilly, steaming atmosphere curled out of the tube.
Kane leaned in, shoving at a mess of lines and wires, dragging them up and out to reveal a figure, human, hurt. There was blood. There were...IV lines, oxygen, clamps, and the oily-black gleam of polycarbonate bones, an armature of replacement limbs, bare necessity, and a bare, pale skull, a face.
Jensen - all of them - saw this, in the bone-white glare of the spot, in the fuzzing blue-green-red of the HUD. They saw Kane's armored hand reach out, and carefully, gently, tip the face up, pushing aside a clotted mess of wires and sensors. It was a strong-jawed, high-nosed face, its skin gone the sickly sort of ash-grey that dark skin goes when the person is ill. Full lips were parched nearly white, cracked, with old blood gathered in the seam. Dark eyes were filmed over, blue-grey, blind, half shut. Their lids flickered, their chest hitched in shallow breaths; they were alive, barely. But that face...that face.
"Sinna!" Kane bellowed, and it whiplashed through the 'net: the face, the person, the Angel. Sinna It’s Kee, Kee, Kee
Can't be, she died, saw it, knew it, how what Morgan fucking report, stand by stand down fucking hell- Jensen stood, knees locked, as Sinna shoved past, brutal in her haste, and all but leapt up onto the platform. Kane fell back, fast, and then Sinna was bending down over the tube, her fury and terror in the 'net so loud everyone was wincing away, but taking it - letting her - as Kee's story spilled out in the 'net.
Some op, on some world in some Stick assault, dead and gone in the 'net and on the ship, Tiamat Angels yanked off-world before they could recover any bodies, another ship moving in, other troops. And somehow she was here, years and light years away, locked into this ship, barely alive, barely herself.
Jensen ignored Sinna's output for a moment - it was too focused, it hurt too fucking much - to snatch images from Jinx, from Kane, from the HUD. Wires and sensors from the platform-tube went into ports in Kee’s skull, her neck, her arms - no, arm, because the right one was gone, replaced by a polycarbonate skeleton, no attempt at anything remotely human. Her long, too-thin torso, behind bands of glassine, was the same: ports and sensors, wires and tubes. Her right leg was gone, as well, and half of her left, and it was as if the whole sensor array of Angel armor had been stripped out and plugged directly into her flesh and bones. As if they were trying to make her into armor, or machine. Fuck, what had they done to her?
It was horrifying. It was obscene... and she was alive. Alive
Jensen swallowed against a sudden surge of sickness, his gut churning, his heart pounding. Panting hard, he wrestled his own emotions under control, half-buried under the furious, boiling cloud of Sinna's.
How how, dead, we saw Morgan how how Kane and Jinx, Max - every Tiamat Angel - was suddenly turning, in bewildered fury, on Morgan, and it hit the 'net and rebounded, story shared, outrage shared, the 'net humming and buzzing and roaring.
And Jensen didn't care, he just - didn't. Couldn't. Kee was here, she was alive, she was the only one alive, and they had to get her out.
"T'ssmg'ku, we have a survivor, Angel survivor, we need immediate medical evac, my location."
"Su, su, su," from Hakase, and then a firefly, piping translator voice. "Please scan and transmit on medico channel, medical personnel are deployed."
"Kee, oh, Kee." Querida, please, where are you, where-? She's not here, she's not, what did they do, what-? Sinna was getting frantic, overwhelming in the 'net, because Kee was not in the 'net; hadn't been, not for a moment, not the barest murmur since they'd found her. Totally blank, null. Silent.
Sinna clawed at her helmet, at the faceplate, and shoved it up, overriding a warning beep, cancelling the HUD in her 'net flow, so that instead, like a slap, something else was there in the 'net. The cold, clammy mist that was still curling up out of the tube, the stink of a body long untended. Chilled metal, burned plastics, blood, piss. Sinna slapped at the locks and disengaged the armored gauntlet on her left hand, and they all watched - felt - reached with her, as she stretched her hand out, the lip of the tube-thing a barrier at Sinna's chest, the edge of the helmet blocking part of her view. Sinna's hand - shaking, shaking - reached and then touched the gaunt, sweat-slick skin of Kee's cheek. The skin under Sinna's fingertips was cold, and Sinna stroked gently, leaning in as far as the armor would allow. Jensen's suit could hear sounds, now, unfiltered - tiny hissings, and cracklings, the thick, labored wheeze of Kee's lungs.
"Kee? Kee, it's Sinna. We have you, Querida , we have you."
Kee shivered, the skeletal fingers of her polycarbonate hand flexing, tapping on glassine and metal with sharp little clicks. Her clouded eyes lifted, searching, and Jensen could see sensors lifting, like fine hairs moving out from her naked skull. Her jaw worked, and then her lips moved, unseaming, cracked skin letting down a sudden, grotesquely bright thread of scarlet blood.
"Ssss….Ssin?" Kee said, and Jensen wanted to scream at the ruined hiss of a voice that had once sung to them, like something out of a dream.
"Oh, fuck, Kee, Kee- " Help her help her, now fuck, where are the fucking medicos?
On their way, Sinna, just stand down, wait, don't move her, might hurt her, we'll figure it out Jensen ordered, and Sinna curled down over Kee, her voice gone wobbly and cracked.
Malik. Get who you need, get this figured out, we have to get her out. Coy, take fourth, fifth and sixth squad, go recon, make sure there's nobody...nobody else. Keep the line open, take no chances, be careful. Five, Jinx, Kane - whoever Malik doesn't need, send them to quarters, scour the place, any intel - go, go, go!
The squads scattered except for the three Malik chose. Dataspots and tool kits came out, everyone trying to figure out how to get Kee out of the damn tube, out of the glassine and metal embrace of the ship, without killing her. Sinna stayed up on the platform, armor locked into a curve over Kee, her voice a whisper, her hand never leaving Kee's cheek, her jaw, the curve of her skull.
It took almost an hour to free Kee from the grip of the tube, and in that time, every squad reported back: no life. Not a single person remained alive on the ship but Kee, and it was obvious, after poking and prying and delving into every console and data storage undamaged enough to access, it was all deliberate. The Angels had mutinied, and destroyed the ship from the inside out. Why...was still a mystery.
When they could finally, delicately, lift Kee up and out of the tube, to immediately settle her into a sling of generation wrap and monitors, Jensen got the squads moving in an escort to the medico skimmer and then back to their own - back to the ships. A moment's consultation in the 'net, and then Jensen gave his orders. The ship's black box had given up everything, down to size and number of bolts in the hull, and they didn't need - couldn't get - anything else from it. There was enough power to set it moving, on course away from the arcology.
Malik and Jinx went to the skip array command, and set the overrides. In six hours - well clear of the arcology - the skip array would power up - and up, and up, and up. Death-charge, last skip. It would flare out of the Now and into the Between in fire and particulates and dust. Utter destruction. A fitting end for an Angel ship, and for the Angels who had died on board.
When Jensen got back to the arcology, he didn't bother to strip out of his armor, he just moved, striding through the corridors, trailing Kane and Jinx, Five and Malik and Sous, Grieve and Max in his wake. Straight to obs-con, straight to the gathering of Quo and Diaboli and arcology staff, he marched right up to Hakase. They were on level, now, with Jensen in the armor, eye to eye on the decking. The fireflies whirled and danced, tracing the armor seams, humming. Jensen unlocked the faceplate and shoved it back, dragging in a lungful of clean, cool, Quo-scented air.
"Hakase, we have to go. We have to go to Salome, to the Company. We have to end this. We have to do it now. Will you help us?"
The fireflies hummed and chimed, swarming, swarming, before settling, one by one, on Hakase's fur. They beaded Hakase’s throat and shoulders, hovering in a winking, glowing halo all around their head, whispering to them. Hakase's long snout tucked under, arms curled up, their hands tucked up against their throat as fireflies zipped in from all over the room, in and out again, faster than the eye could see. Eventually, Hakase lifted their head, arms going down and out, fingers uncurling to show the long, razored claws, snout lifting.
"Jen-zen," Hakase said. "Jen-zen. Yessss. We go. Iynght srahzss, to Sssal'o'eh. All. All of us."
"All-?" Jensen said, and Alinx sidled up, looking excited and a little sick.
"They mean-? They said… all of the them, too, yah? The Quo, the Diaboli, us - they're moving the whole fucking arcology, Jensen. All of it, yah?"
"Fucking hell," Jensen said, feeling gut-punched, surprise making his head spin for a moment. The 'net surged and rebounded and then settled, a steady hum of excitement, and from down in the med bay came the first trickle of information from Sinna. Kee was in, settled, they were working on her, she was alright, she was there.
"Hakase, I...thank you. Thank you, for helping us. Are you...sure?"
Hakase lifted their head, shoulders going back, their whole curved body stretching tall for a moment, out of the habitual slump most Quo affected. "Wheee are. I...am shhhure. Time, now, for thisss. For uss. Time to end it."
Part twenty-five.
Originally entered at https://tabaqui.dreamwidth.org/199042.html - comment where you please!