Neal Asher - The Departure

Had he been a normal person Smith might have been terrified, but as far as Hannah could see, he seemed to be showing only an intellectual curiosity in the sequence of events. It seemed he had stepped off the far side of weird some time ago.

‘That was an excellent tactic, well thought out and precisely applied,’ he had remarked, his voice crackling through the button speakers set into the fabric of Hannah’s survival suit. ‘I might have used it myself, but the Traveller engine has always resided outside of my calculation structure.’

Meaning he hadn’t thought of it.

Once the half-gravity of acceleration had cut out, Hannah had tried throwing herself away from him, but his hand had closed instantly on her shoulder as he jammed the automatic into her side. Now he kept her close, digging the gun in deeper every time she tried to slow down. So what, she wondered, was the situation now?

Saul had killed most of both the attacking and defending forces. It seemed he also had control of the spiderguns out there but, judging by the robot host gathered between her and these weapons, he did not have full control of the station. It looked like a stand-off to her, and one that none of them could survive. If Smith and Saul continued fighting for control here, much of the equipment would get wrecked, and as they drew further and further away from Earth, they would increasingly need that equipment to survive. But did Saul even care about that? He’d successfully cut the head off Earth’s government, taken away one of its biggest technological toys; he’d struck a blow, had his vengeance, and now Messina and his corrupt crew would have no chance of taking up the reins of power again. Saul had then chosen to fling the Argus Station out into space, rather than down towards Earth, so perhaps he was not entirely suicidal, but what would he do now?

Corpses were draped over nearby beams, others had broken free and were floating about between the lattice walls, as now the Political Office loomed ahead. Where are you Saul? What are you doing now? Part of the answer reached her almost at once, as Smith lurched abruptly to a halt, his gun hand rising up alongside his head. Hannah tried to pull away again, but his other hand still tightly gripped her shoulder. She could see him saying something but, over com, nothing but static. Roughly, he shoved her forward again, their pace now even faster. Nearby, the robots hovered inert, whilst moving through station structure ahead she could see soldiers entering the Political Office.

After another half a kilometre, she and Smith entered an enclosed tubeway, passed a machine gun tipped over on its side, and finally came to a double-door airlock. When these doors did not open on their approach, she realized what that burst of static meant. The EM shield was turned back on, preventing Smith from delivering mental instructions, but it also meant Saul was out of that realm too. Both were now as blind and powerless as anyone else in this place.

Smith shoved her up to the doors, tapped a code into the console immediately beside them, then pushed her inside as soon as the doors opened. He gripped her shoulder as the airlock cycled, then after dragging her through finally released his hold on her. Stepping back, he gestured at her suit then flicked his hand to one side, obviously wanting her to remove it. She considered pretending to misunderstand him, but this garment did not offer her the same protection as a VC suit, so there seemed little point. She laboriously stripped her way out of it, as other people began to appear – most of them looking like the kind of desk jockeys that ran the Committee’s bureaucracy, though they included a few of Langstrom’s soldiers, whose battered appearance suggested they had just come in from outside.

Smith removed his helmet. ‘You,’ he pointed at one of the soldiers, ‘clear the lower three floors, but bring up whatever weapons you can find there.’

‘Sir?’ the soldier glanced dubiously at the anxious-looking staff standing all around them.

Smith nodded. ‘Organize teams to guard all the entrances. See that no one gets in unless you can confirm their identity. Am I understood?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Smith waved the man aside, then caught hold of Hannah’s shoulder and hauled her along after him.

‘Saul’s turned the EM shield on,’ she remarked. ‘That means you’re blind.’

‘I can turn it off directly from my control room,’ he replied.

‘If you two keep fighting, there won’t be anything left here,’ she said.

‘Once I have dealt with Saul, though unfortunately at a distance, I should be able to gain mental access to the steering thrusters and the Traveller engine.’ He glanced at her, and continued, ‘He is aiming to set on course towards Mars. I, however, will bring us back. I can then dispose of Messina – probably dump him into one of the station’s digesters. You see,’ he gave a strange twisted smile, ‘Saul has made my victory complete.’

‘But you’ll have to deal with Saul first.’

He turned suddenly and slammed her back against the wall, his face thrust forward till it was almost touching hers. ‘Even with the shield turned off, he controls only a few robots and some unimportant systems inside this station.’ He stepped back, gesturing to his chest with the weapon. ‘I will take them all away from him, and then hunt him down with his own machines. He simply does not possess the moral strength to defeat me.’

Moral strength?

He pulled her from the wall and pushed her ahead. They entered a cageway rising to another floor, made their way along another corridor, then through double sliding doors into a large control centre. It looked more like a slaughterhouse.

Two corpses lay on the floor, one drifted through the air whilst another lay draped over a console. Bullet holes riddled the equipment and a stratum of smoke hovered in the air just above head height. The place stank of burnt plastic and something was sizzling behind one of the screens.

‘What?’ exclaimed Smith, looking round, his grip slackening momentarily.

Seizing her chance, Hannah threw herself sideways, turning to hit the wall hard with her back, the breath knocked out of her. She scrabbled to get away from Smith, even as he swung towards her. Across the room, Saul rose from behind a console, a carbine up and braced against his shoulder. Two shots slammed into Smith’s chest, hurling him back into the closed doors. He bounced away, brought his feet back down onto the floor, struggling to raise his weapon. Saul rounded the console and headed over, caught Smith’s hand and shook the weapon from it, sending it tumbling away through the air.

‘The shield will shut down in a moment,’ explained Saul. ‘I estimate it will then take me only half an hour to crack all your codes. Then this station . . .’ Saul paused contemplatively. ‘No, this spaceship , will be mine.’

Smith started to say something, but only blood issued from his mouth. Hannah pushed herself upright, keeping well back. She now just felt exhausted.

‘There’s nothing more I need to say to you, really,’ Saul finished.

He raised his carbine to Smith’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Smith was slammed back again, the rear of his skull exploding outwards, hints of metal glinting inside. He hit one of the double doors again and bounced away, slowly tilting forward like some kind of ancient monolith. Hannah just stared at the blood beading the air, at a piece of scalp gyrating away from him, then, abruptly and violently, she threw up.

‘This feels somehow disappointing,’ remarked Saul, still staring at Smith.

‘The EM shield?’ Hannah finally managed.

‘With the EM field up, he could not get into my head and I could not get into his,’ said Saul. ‘But most important he was blind, and that’s what enabled me to sneak in here.’