A Fury Of Aces: Crystal Venom Part 23

They landed at one of the lower caves, where the two dead women were placed in stone coffins carved into the rock. Before the bodies were sealed in behind rock lids, the female elder folded the arms of the corpses across their chests, slipped the little pieces of stone from their eyes and closed them, finally pulling the hoods of the wraps over their faces. She bowed to each of the dead, then slowly walked over to Marko, bowed to him and placed the stones in his hand. He looked and saw exquisite, wafer thin carvings of a white bird in flight on their surface. He bowed and thanked her then pa.s.sed them to Glint who activated and opened a pocket on his flank and carefully slid them in with Marko's money cards.

All the time Jim had been silent, carefully recording everything. For the first time that day he spoke. 'My grat.i.tude and thanks to everyone for the honour shown my fallen colleagues. As you are aware, they will probably live again and I know that they will be deeply moved by your ceremony. I do not know what to say for them, except to declare that they would have enjoyed this very much.'

Marko looked curiously at the monitor, who had a.s.sembled himself into a sphere and was hovering beside the graves. He wondered what was happening in its brain and if it actually comprehended death in any form ... Jim had been effectively lobotomised by the producer; had the guys got all of Jim's mind back when they rebuilt him? He reached across and patted the matt black machine and nodded at each of the Avians.

'On behalf of my crew,' Marko began, 'I give thanks to you and yours, to your history, to your love of life and flight, to your caring att.i.tude and dignity in the face of death. You have honoured people we cared for. I believe that the last thing to do today is to fly in honour of our friends.'

He formally bowed to the a.s.sembled Avians, noting that Glint and little Spike did the same, then climbed into the Chrysops and led the Avians high into the sky to circle two times around the burial mountain.

Marko then headed south to look for the downed dirigible. Most of the Avians had headed back to the village, except Dana and Dane, who were perched on the small wings of the Chrysops holding onto the c.o.c.kpit sides.

Dana leant into the c.o.c.kpit, loudly saying, 'We are in the search area. I see broken trees at two o'clock, six hundred metres, Marko.'

'A good place to start looking, Dane.'

'Marko, the s.h.i.+p ent.i.ty called Rick,' Dane said. 'Do you trust him? It is just that we have had dealings with him in the past, and we have always wondered as to his agenda.'

Marko hesitated briefly, before replying truthfully. 'Trust? Nope. Respect? Yes. The Haulers are an odd mix of biological and technological. They control the navigation points of this part of the Milky Way and they play games of great importance over very long time scales. No, I do not trust Rick. I like parts of him, but I also know that he would kill us in an instant if he believed that it would do humankind good. Actually, I think that he would kill this planet.'

Dane's eyes narrowed. 'So, this is why he is using us as weapons?'

A cold shudder went through Marko. 'Weapons, Dane?'

The Avian's shoulders straightened. 'We believe he has infected the refugees, who were the initial group taken off world, with a group of biological weapons tailored against the octopoids. We believe that this action is to kill octopoids on planets that they currently occupy - we of course as a subspecies have little interest in what lives below the waves. They naturally have no interest in what lives in the hills and mountains either. We wonder if this is a justifiable thing he has done. You are aware that this visit is the fourth he has made? He brings wonderful images of everything that we aspire to and the messages that come back from our kin are very encouraging ... in particular to the young or dispossessed. The previous two times he brought some of our people back with him, but while we could see and talk to them they were not brought down to the surface.'

Marko looked across at the beautiful black-and-gold plumed human beside him, and again wondered why he always seemed to find himself in the middle of momentous things, then he suddenly sat bolt upright, almost shouting, 'Oh, f.u.c.k!'

Dane looked at him in alarm. 'What is it, Marko? Is there something wrong?'

A frightened Marko said, 'Oh, h.e.l.l, yes! Dane, can you survive above the cloud cover?'

'Yes, we can but for no more than an hour otherwise we become too cold. What is wrong?'

Marko was really worried. 'One of our crew has octopoid technology on board her craft. It may be susceptible to the biological weapons you mentioned. Shall I drop you off or do you want to come for a ride?'

Dane and then Dana smiled, with the younger saying, 'Come, let's ride into the heavens.'

Switching to the crew comms, Marko spoke to Glint. 'If Stephine or I become infected with this killer or killers that Rick is using, we will be badly affected. I worry also for my unborn children. Set up the laser comms, Glint, and work out where Basalt will be in ten minutes. We need to talk.' Marko fed power to the antigravity and went straight up.

Glint shook his head, wondering why the Haulers had involved themselves in such a messy business. He privately had real concerns for the sanity of Rick, in that his demeanour had changed in the time that he had known him.

'Stephine will be aware of the threat to herself,' Glint said, 'and Rick would be insane to involve her. Perhaps this is why he sent her off?'

Marko agreed. 'Probably, whereas I would not matter. But of course he has no idea of what I have become anyway.'

Both Glint and Spike nodded, and Spike said, 'Let's keep it that way. We will break through the clouds in three minutes. I know where Basalt is.'

Jim extended an eyestalk and flashed a message into Marko's crew comms. 'Why are we ascending, Marko? You can talk with me as the recording equipment is all shut down.'

'We need to establish comms with Basalt, Jim, as there may be a nasty biological weapon on board the dirigible. We need advice.'

Jim searched his files, but was unable to find anything regarding possible biological weapons. 'Why would there be a biological weapon on board a humanitarian mission?'

Glint interrupted. 'Before you say anything, Marko, I shall squirt Jim the whole file.'

Turning his head, Marko saw Glint interface directly with Jim just as they popped up through the clouds to look up into a perfectly clear sky with the enormous rings of the gas giant clearly visible even in the sunlight. Great, deep crimson storms with torn edges of peach and gold colours circled the upper atmosphere of the gas giant forming a backdrop to the local sun in the furthest quadrant of the sky. The two Avians were grinning at each other and admiring the view in turn.

'We have comms with Patrick.' Glint said. 'Information regarding everything is sent. Jim, do you wish to upload your data as well? We have fifteen minutes before the Avians will start to feel uncomfortable.'

Jim replied. 'Yes! Good. I shall need only eighty per cent of the connection. Uploading.'

Seconds later the major, on Basalt, replied to their messages. 'Marko, good to hear from you. Stephine and Veg are about to leave. She will be at your position in forty minutes with Lilly and Jasmine riding shotgun. We are also on the move considering that all h.e.l.l is breaking loose up here. Rick is at war with himself, and there is also an inbound Cruiser of unknown origin. It has just pa.s.sed through the local LP. Maybe one of the more maverick Gjomvik Corporations has sent a heavy to find out where their biological s.h.i.+pments are. So, all in all, extremely fortunate that you have established good relations.h.i.+ps with the locals as we may need a place to hide. We have been lied to yet again.'

Marko sighed in relief that everyone was fine. 'OK, stand by.'

Then he addressed himself to Dane. 'Do you have somewhere Basalt can get underground? Rick is in three pieces and it looks like a schism of some sort has occurred as they are about to start a fight between themselves. Also, we have an inbound heavy Cruiser of unknown origin or intentions.'

Dane snapped his head around to look closely at Marko. 'That's not good. Yes, there is a place, but I cannot make that decision. It must go before the council. Wait a moment, I'll start things happening. How soon before your s.h.i.+p needs shelter?'

'They are inbound as we speak.'

'I understand, Marko. We had better get back then.' Dane replied.

'How fast can you fly, Dane?'

The Avian smiled. 'Thirty kilometres would take us thirty standard minutes. But we could hang onto this craft and streamline ourselves, in which case if you did not go over one hundred and fifty kilometres per hour we would be OK.'

Marko grimaced, wis.h.i.+ng to go much faster, but said, 'Right, do it.'

The two Avians pulled themselves out to the wingtips of the Chrysops and wrapped themselves around the linear guns as Marko started to dive down through the clouds. They levelled out over the forest, suddenly seeing the command module of the downed dirigible hanging upside down among the great fungal trees with the native insects, lizards and dozens of other species all around it. Marko marked the position in his navigation computer and flew onwards, only to see three of the dirigible's escort guns.h.i.+ps flying up to meet them.

's.h.i.+t! Dana, Dane, either drop away or get off the guns. No, don't drop away! Had enough funerals for the week and yours would be permanent. Glint, smack the rear one! Guys, shuffle along the wings and dig those claws of yours into the sheathing. And hang on!'

Glint climbed out of his seat, adjusting himself as Marko rolled the Chrysops over onto its back and dived for the ground, while Glint opened fire on the trailing guns.h.i.+p, hitting it continuously in its magazines until it erupted, flinging pieces of wreckage across the sky. Precision munitions. .h.i.t the Chrysops in its antigravity control units and Marko poured the power back on, trying to maintain airflow over the lifting body of the craft. He dived among the trees and then down into a ravine as the two guns.h.i.+ps tried to engage him again. Glint tried to fire on them with the wingtip rail guns but he couldn't get either of them to respond.

Marko fought the controls, feeling the thuds of incoming projectiles, as one system after another shut down. He was barely aware that Jim was lifting himself out of the c.o.c.kpit and Spike had jumped onto the monitor. Marko started to look for a possible crash-landing spot, but could see nothing suitable. Then two bright blue missiles flashed past him, detonating against each of the guns.h.i.+ps. Glint was lifted from his c.o.c.kpit by Jim, and an instant later Marko felt his harness being cut away as he was also lifted bodily, with just a fraction of a second to grab his carbine and survival pack.

The Chrysops erupted into flame and tumbled down, cras.h.i.+ng into one of the bigger trees.

He looked up to see the two Avians flapping furiously in sequence to lower him to the ground.

'Sorry, Marko,' Dana was saying, 'you are just too heavy to support aloft. We will put you down and then guide you back.'

A moment later his feet touched the spongy ground and they let him go. He pulled the pack onto his back checked the magazine on the carbine and started to walk after them as Glint bounded up beside him. Marko grinned at him. 'Well, that was an interesting ejection. No spinal compression or anything like that. So, we have twenty-eight kilometres to go. Where is Jim?'

Glint pointed straight up. 'Right above us, recording everything. Do we have to walk from here? And where did those missiles come from?'

Marko looked towards the distant mountain. 'Unlikely, Glint... I'd say that we will get picked up, but hey, you never know about these things. The missiles? Don't know. They came directly from where the valley is, so I suppose it must have been the monastery.'

They heard a rumbling from far above them and then heard rail gun strikes hundreds of metres behind them, as Lilly and Jasmine, flying the Hangers, ripped down through the atmosphere. They circled high above them, engaging targets which Marko and Glint presumed were more of the escort guns.h.i.+ps from the dirigible.

Marko recognised Lilly yelling at him through the comms. 'Marko, stop staring and get walking, fast! Stephine wants to thump the remains of the dirigible with a Compressor and you know what a bang that is going to be. Love you!'

The two Avians pointed out the fastest route, and Glint led as they started running and jumping from fungal growth to fungal growth until Marko started to laugh, thinking that they must look comical from above. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that Jim was in trouble. Dozens of very large hornets had started to take an interest in him. He stopped and unslung his carbine, wondering how good he would be at shooting rapidly moving insects when they were almost simultaneously vaporised by laser fire from above.

'Marko, stop p.i.s.sing about! Run!'

Recognising Stephine's strident tone that time, he started running and jumping again, but without watching where Glint was leading. An instant after stepping on a different-coloured giant mushroom-like plant, he punched a hole straight through it and bounced from stalk to stalk to the ground, tens of metres below. He rolled upright in the gloom and was surrounded by thousands of stalks of fungus thras.h.i.+ng about in some sort of reaction to one of them believing it had been attacked.

He stood up uninjured, but confused as to where he was he attempted to contact his colleagues and get a fix on his position. The suit's comms systems showed electrical activity around him that was blocking any signals in or out. Down at ground level, the stalks were only a metre apart at the most.

He brought up the alternative inertial navigation in his faceplate and started to push his way through, finding that underfoot was knee-deep, spongy, water-filled slush. He tried climbing one of the bigger stalks, but not having any spikes in his gloves or boots was unable to make any progress.

He then tried to cut steps into one of the stalks, but that resulted in thousands of fist-sized slugs squirming out of the damaged area, smothering him and trying to chew on the suit. Interesting defence system, Marko thought. He pushed on, slos.h.i.+ng his way up the ravine, following the navigation way points in his HUD, but he was often met with impa.s.sable stones or plant ma.s.ses. Stopping to catch his breath after heaving himself between hundreds of a different types of stalk, which all produced slime if he touched them, he suddenly felt himself grabbed around the ankles and towed backwards.

He kicked out, but to no avail, as whatever had attacked him had a good grip. He twisted around and s.n.a.t.c.hed his pistol from the holster on his chest when he saw a monstrous slug creature trying to bite through his suit legs. He fired three times into its head segment, which only served to irritate the giant gastropod, before he pulled out his long curved battle knife, from its belt sheath, with his left hand and sliced off the top of the creature's circular mouth. It reared backwards, thras.h.i.+ng about and spewing great gouts of green-black slime over him as he slid rapidly away. Finally upright, he tried to clean the visor, but could only see a smeared vision through the gloom of what lay ahead. Switching back to the inertial maps and constantly calling his mates, he steadily worked his way uphill.

High above Marko, Glint kept trying to force his way down through the fungus only to have them repeat their tras.h.i.+ng about. He quietly and slowly lifted a piece of the fungus head, allowing Spike to slip underneath.

Spike the little mechanical spider was perfectly suited to the job of finding his friend and hummed a little tune to himself as he swung from stalk to stalk following the marks that Marko had left behind. Often he had to pop his head up through the fungus crowns to encourage Jim to stay close - the datalink was not good under the fungus. Seeing a ten-metre-long slug rolling about he knew he was close, until finally he saw a black slime-covered form that looked vaguely human. He vectored Lilly, who fired a laser down into the fungus, slicing away swathes of material until she could also see Marko. She nosed the Hanger up the exposed slope towards him and lowered the landing skids until she had one against his chest.

Marko felt the forward part of the landing skid and, as he grasped it, Spike climbed onto his helmet. Lilly lifted them both up the ravine and over a small valley to a deep pool of water which Dana had proclaimed safe and told Marko to drop. He splashed in, allowing himself to hit the bottom, and thrashed about to dislodge most of the fungal material before walking back out, pus.h.i.+ng large lily pads out of the way.

As he broke the surface, thousands of insects of every variety lifted in a great cloud to circle around him; many landed on the suit to see if it was edible. Disappointed, they left him, and the whole cloud dispersed as quickly as it had formed. His visor was now cleared enough for its own systems to clean it completely, so he could also watch Spike cleaning himself off. Just as he was about to climb up Marko's arm a lizard-like creature erupted from the undergrowth to pounce, biting down on Spike's abdomen. The indignant spider forced open the jaws of the surprised, hissing lizard, giving it a hard thump on the side of its head for good measure. He then ran up Marko's leg and back and pulled himself up onto the helmet again.

'Some creatures have no respect and little capability to learn, Marko,' Spike said. 'That's the sixth one to try that today.'

Jasmine holding station above, spoke to them. 'Marko, Spike, harness on its way down.'

An antigravity harness thumped into the ground beside them as Jasmine did a slow hard turn and accelerated away. Marko unfolded the tough antigrav unit, locked it on and activated it, happy to be leaving the spongy, slushy ground just as an eel-like creature shot out of the water to latch onto his boot. He kicked it off with the other boot as they lifted fifteen metres into the air and wondered what was going to happen next. Looking behind him, he saw Blackjack and the two Hangers engaging numerous targets around the dirigible, then looked upwards to see Basalt coming through the clouds, trailing black smoke and heading towards the Avian mountain.

A slight thump on the side of his helmet got his attention. He felt a piece of vine when he reached up with his hand, then saw Dana and Dane slowly flapping their wings and gripping the other ends of the dangling length. He grasped on, tied a loop through the antigravity harness and a moment later was flying over the tops of the fungal forest being towed by two winged men. He smiled to himself at the totally glorious incongruity of it all. Looking over to his side, he saw a most peculiar flying creature before he recognised Glint wrapped around the Jim monitor, holding station beside them, looking just like a gunmetal-coloured dragon wrapped around a black ball.

'Jim is excited about the image you make, Marko,' Glint called out. 'Says that this afternoon's segments will break all viewing figures when he gets back, as he knows of nothing like it in the past.'

Marko laughed, feeling exhilarated by the day's events. 'Yeah, that would be right. Hey, what happened with Basalt ?'

'They had to fight their way down as the three elements of Rick are fighting each other and, although the Ricks were distracted, they did not recognise Basalt as either friend or foe and shot up its engines anyway. Imagery on its way to you.'

The data files arrived in Marko's inbox so with nothing better to do he started sampling them. Looking through, he suspected that Stephine had had something to do with what had happened as the action began shortly after Blackjack arrived back at the moon. The part of Rick she had docked with started arguing with the other two that what they were doing was wrong.

The arguments became steadily more heated until the two segments, who believed that they were doing the right thing, fired on the engines of the third. It had retaliated with its enormous planetary bombardment particle beams flas.h.i.+ng across s.p.a.ce slicing away the main propulsion systems of the second segment. That segment then launched a suicide attack using all its separate weapons platforms and independent systems onto the first segment, which had been subsequently severely damaged. The last segment had then turned and fled up to the local LP to jump away, damaged from long-range strikes but still mobile, only to be met with a furious devastating attack from the unknown Cruiser, which, after destroying the segment, then jumped away, leaving an expanding debris field.

Marko let out a great sigh and wondered again what would become of them all. He pulled up the images of the unknown heavily armed Cruiser and looked at it closely. He thought that it was probably octopoid in origin.

Dana called out, breaking his reverie. 'We are all to go to ground, Marko. Stand by for landing and we will hide below the ridge line. Our council have gladly agreed to give safe harbour to Basalt and everyone in its crew. It has also, with considerable regret, allowed the bombardment of the dirigible crash site with one of your more exotic weapons.'

Moments later they were all sitting down in a ravine, as the two Hangers also swept overhead and came to a halt, hovering above the ravine floor. Marko, with his arm around Glint, watched the mountains as, moments later, the double magenta flash of the Compressor lit them up. Marko felt deep sorrow for the annihilation of all life in a 250-metre radius of the crash site, together with the levels of devastation further out. But he also gave a silent thanks that his children would be safe as the ground jolted a little and the blast wave roared above them.

Minutes later Veg broadcast instructions. 'All crew and Avians stay where you are. Transport is on the way.'

They watched as the Hangers lifted off and held station above them, along with Blackjack arriving to orbit high in the sky.

Six.

Days later, after a great deal of discussion and information-sharing between the groups involved, the fate of the Avians who had been taken from the moon was announced. As the refugees were leaving on board Rick's carriers for the distant world, they had been unwittingly but deliberately infected with the pathogens and virus that were lethal to the octopoid races. According to the surviving Rick segment, who was repairing himself as quickly as possible, the three colonies were all prospering and in time, he a.s.sured everyone, he would remove the weapons from them. None of the Basalt crew trusted Rick, but they all wanted a lift home, so they smiled in agreement, although Marko suspected Stephine and Veg had put him on severe notice.

A week later everyone from the Monastry, plus the crew of Basalt, were gathered in the fan-shaped amphitheatre, seated and quietly talking among themselves as the eternal teenager, Fritz, walked in. He had been locked away in the amphitheatre since Basalt had landed in a deep shaft on the northern side of the mountain, even eating and sleeping there. He went up to the keyboards of the magnificent pipe organ and proceeded over the next hour to enthrall his audience with a selection of his favourite pieces, before he rose and announced that a piece that he had composed would be played for the first time especially for them.

As he started to play, even the smallest of the children were in a state of rapt attention and Marko had a great deal of difficulty tearing his eyes away from his genius friend for even an instant to look around him: he was feeling a pang of sadness that Jan was not with him to experience it. The music swept them on a journey of grandeur, and they pa.s.sed by exploding stars, and experienced every emotion any of them had ever had. The music burrowed right down until it seemed that they were examining the tiniest struggling flower on a mountaintop while a huge storm raged around them. The conclusion left them all in a state of ecstasy with tears rolling down their faces, and huge, almost painful, smiles on their faces.

In orbit, listening to the direct feeds, as arranged from the Jim monitor, the three surviving Rick proxys and the considerably diminished but still great s.h.i.+p, Rick, listened in awe. When the music stopped playing and the spatial a.n.a.lysis of the mathematics it contained was complete, the senior of the proxys let out a long sigh of contentment.

'So,' it said, 'the little man was the final key to the entire conundrum. Remarkable, truly remarkable, that he created the ultimate component of the very long-range navigation mathematics that we have been searching for for so long. Almost makes the whole debacle worthwhile. That was a most unexpected outcome.'

Appendix One.

GLOSSARY.

ACE (Artificially Created Ent.i.ty).

An ACE is often a pet or helper. An ACE may have animal or human DNA, in any combination, and is frequently cybernetically enhanced. They are normally fully sentient, serve their creator in an indentured capacity for a fixed time period, then are free to make their own way throughout the Sphere or beyond.

The Administration The governmental military forces and bureaucracy of the Sphere of Humankind. Bureaucracy everywhere, even in the far future, is the same.

The Games Board.

The media group concerned with the procurement and production of reality audiovisual. The Games Board was created to stage strictly regulated Conflicts and to promote them through their extensive marketing and broadcast channels, notice boards and other media. The Games Board controls everything about the Conflicts, from weapons development to final approval of the Conflict itself. If the Conflict is sanctioned, the Games Board will provide funding. Unsanctioned Conflicts are also overviewed by the Games Board, broadcast and marketed, with the understanding that should they get too big, the combined forces of the Administration, Gjomvik and Games Board forces will end the Conflict with overwhelming force. Small controlled Conflicts are encouraged as they are good for business and keep all humans entertained.

The Gjomvik Corporations The business and trade corporations of the Sphere of Humankind. Big business in the far future is the same as big business today. The Gjomvik Corporations are controlled by large family groups or appointed individuals. They provide the main source of funded mercenary groups which partic.i.p.ate in the sanctioned Games Board Conflicts, plus most of the weapons, craft and support.

The Haulers' Collective.

The long-range carriers of all trade and information. Huge s.h.i.+ps capable of transporting great quant.i.ties of trade goods or whatever else is required. They also actively map the Lagrange points and collect fees from all s.h.i.+ps using those navigation points. They explore far further out from the Sphere and are humankind's first line of defence.

The Humans Unaltered humans are Type S (Standard), but the heroes of the Conflicts are often augmented humans (Type A). Some AI (Augmented Intelligence) units are human, and may look like machines or even like Type A humans. Other types of humans include: Type AM - Type A human, military Type AE - Type A human, explorer.

Monitors and Expeditors - Type A humans augmented to fulfil specific functions required by the Games Board.