<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>

Chapter 20

There was a shocked silence.

"No," Quirk said stubbornly. "I don't buy it. What has he got all the resurrection machinery for if his death will blow up the ship?! What if he slips in the shower and bangs his head?
"Besides, I did manage to top that little shit once," he said, hefting the sniper rifle again. "Splashed his head all over a portrait of himself!"

Quirk gave a deep and happy sigh at the memory. His eyes flashed "KiLL" again briefly and Xerian shifted position uncomfortably.

"But the Emperor got better," Niall said. "For the reasons you have outlined, it is unlikely that a cessation of his vital signs would immediately blow the main reactor. And as you have mentioned, the implants are very good at keeping said vital signs running.
"But suppose you did manage to vaporise him? The system may be programmed to allow a grace period of say, 8 hours, in order for the Emperor to be reanimated before the countdown starts and we get vaporised too.
"Even if we have a whole day to get clear of the ship, that's not anywhere near enough time to rescue all the Synths in the stasis pods!"

"...I don't know," Quirk admitted sullenly. "You're right... We'll have to find out."

"Saving the worlds will be cold comfort to Xerian if his true love doesn't live to see it," Niall pointed out.

"Don't!" Xerian whimpered.

At that moment there was a knocking on the door of their hideout. Niall tensed before realising that agents of the Emperor would not have been so polite. Cautiously he opened the door, gun in hand.

"Hello," P3T3R said. "May I come in...? Are you busy...?"

Quirk looked surprised at the presence of the furtive creature, but gave a shrug. The turquoise kangaroo robot hopped into the room and Niall closed the door behind him.

"Well, this is unusual," Quirk said. "You're not big on company. I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I trust you."

"Then this will probably not help," P3T3R said. "A crisis is coming, a showdown between yourselves and the Emperor. I do not know who will prevail. But before this happens, I feel obliged to warn you..."

"Go on," Quirk said.

"If you are looking for the evil mastermind responsible for all of this chaos, you are looking in the wrong place," the protoroo said.

"What do you mean?" Xerian asked. "We know where the Emperor is... Or do you mean there's another even more evil power behind the throne...?"

"Yes," the robotic kangaroo said simply.

"Then who is it?" Xerian asked, looking horrified.

The robotic kangaroo slumped slightly, dropped on all fours and then sat down.

"You?!" Niall looked appalled.

"You would have realised eventually," the ProtoRoo said. "Or maybe not. Either way, I feel it is my duty to come clean with you, even if it means my destruction."

"Why? If you're as powerful as you say... You could have kept on playing us for fools."

"It would not be right," P3T3R said. "I may be responsible for this, but I am not without a sense of duty and honour. Whatever you may think of me for being an artificial intelligence."

"We are all artificial intelligences here," Niall said. "Well, Eris aside, anyway. So that is neither an excuse, nor even a good reason to hate on someone. Now, you're not acting like a supervillain, so I figure this wasn't exactly a career choice."

"The Emperor's ascendancy is my fault," P3T3R said simply. "We do not have time to go into the whys and wherefores right now, though we may be able to do so in future. Suffice to say that things did not go as intended."

"I see," Toast said. "But if you gave him the throne, why does he want to kill you so badly?"

"Because he fears me. The fact is, I created him - and that means that I can also un-create him. This always happens with authoritarians... those who raise a dictator into power are swiftly eliminated in case they change their mind and raise someone else in his stead. And this is my intention, assuming I can regain access to his implants."

"You mean... he can be cured?" Quirk look astonished, and then upset. "But... But I wanted to vaporise him! Or cut off his head and throw his body out the airlock!"

"Quirk!" Xerian yelped, appalled.

"He has it coming," the Protogen insisted stubbornly.

"You must act as you see fit," P3T3R said. "But remember, your friends could have written you off as incurable."

Quirk sighed and threw his hands in the air. "No argument there."

"We still don't know if it's safe to kill him at all," Niall reminded them. "If I was a psychotically evil absolute monarch with this level of technology, I'd have wired up a dead-man's switch."

"That too is most likely," P3T3R said. "And now, if you will still permit me to leave after confessing so great an error to you, I must return to my sanctum to plan my next act of treason against the Empire.
"I ask only that you keep in mind what I have said when deciding the ultimate fate of my errant child. I pray we will speak again later."

Quirk moved as if to stop him, but Niall had already opened the door and the robotic kangaroo hopped away into the corridor.

"I wish you hadn't done that," the protogen sighed. "I don't trust him."

"Perhaps not," Niall agreed. "But we do seem to be on the same side."

"We should at least give him a chance," Lautrec pointed out. "He saved us from being put into stasis, after all."

"Alright, fine," Quirk sulked, and began inspecting his miniskirt.

"Now then," Niall announced, sitting back in his chair. "Let's review the situation.
"Our main goal has been to disable the ship's cloaking device. We took a detour to try and find Zuki in case the Emperor got him. But it looks like that has happened anyway. And now Lautrec is incapacitated as well. So, I suggest we focus our efforts on getting a remote first, and then we can return our full attention to the cloaking device project."

"I guess so," Xerian said mournfully.

"Once the cloaking device is down, the Emperor will know we mean business. We might be able to bargain with him then... Hand over Zuki or we'll smash something even more important next!"

"What about the ex-mooks?" Toast asked. "Right now they're mostly sitting around playing cards. Could we get them to help?"

"I say we save them for the attack on the cloaking device," Quirk said, paying full attention once again. "The teleporter is more of a stealth mission, and a crowd will only attract attention. But we will need your friend to operate the teleporter."

* * *

"I think this is the nearest teleport station," Quirk said, as they headed down the corridor. "The ship has two of them, I believe."

"There are four," Oram said. "Two of those are mothballed in case of emergency."

"Should we use one of them, then?" Niall pondered. "There's less risk of someone else coming in to use it while we're busy."

"It would take a long time to re-commission it," Oram pointed out. "A full systems check and recalibration. We would need at least a day, assuming nothing has deteriorated in storage. Plus, firing up the unused systems unexpectedly is likely to trigger an alert as well."

Oram hacked into a terminal and began inspecting the logs of the teleportation system. It took a while, but eventually he located the coordinates of Zuki's home.

"It is currently on the other side of the planet from here," he pointed out.

"Do we need to wait until the continent is visible to the ship?" Xerian asked.

"No. After all, the transit beam is able to pass through the ship's hull. It can pass through the planet just as easily. But it does mean that we can't monitor the location properly. We can either send you there blind, or wait until our orbit gives us line-of-sight."

"We'll risk it," Eris decided. "Are you coming, Xerian...?"

"Yes," the Synth said firmly.

"Two to beam down, Mr. Oram!" Niall said, and received strange glances from everyone else.

"Stand in the circle there," the protogen said. He reached out to press a large button, and then suddenly pitched backwards with a choking sound. Red mess dripped down an adjacent wall.

Quirk spun around and returned fire, killing the sniper instantly. The enemy protogen slid down from their perch and fell to the floor with a crash.

"No, no, no!" Xerian wailed.

His cry was answered.

"Xerian... Xerian..." two voices moaned. Two black Synths with red eyes and energy weapons were approaching down the corridor.

"Xerian... Come to us... No! Run, get out! Help!" the voice added urgently, as if they had suddenly regained lucidity for a moment or two.

"They're coming," Niall hissed. "Quick! In here!"

Leaving Oram and the sniper for the maintenance robots, the team ran through a door, hoping it would lead them back to a corridor. It didn't.

"Hell," Toast said, looking around the room. There were a couple of display screens, but no other way out.

"Xerian... Xerian..." the voices wailed outside.

"Yes...?" the Synth asked, opening the door a crack.

"The slugs are crying out for your death, Xerian..." one of the black Synths said, eyes staring wide.

"Are you the slugs?" Niall asked. The Synth fired through the gap, narrowly missing Xerian's arm. He quickly slammed the "close" button and locked the door.

"Holy gods," Niall said. "They make Quirk seem completely sane."

"Don't joke about it! It's not funny!" the Synth yelped.

"I'm not," Niall responded. "We're trapped, unless we want to fight our way through a bunch of innocent Synths who have no idea what they're doing."

At that moment one of the video screens sprang to life.

"Ah, hello!" the Emperor said pleasantly, rubbing his gloved hands together. "I think it's time we had another chat. Are you busy...?"

"Do you mean right here, or in your throne room?" Niall asked. "Because there's a bunch of Evil Death Synths outside who are hassling passers-by. We might find it difficult to make the appointment. Can you slap an anti-social behaviour order on them or something...?"

"Not a problem," the Emperor smiled. "I'll send for an escort. And please do try to make it. Xerian in particular... I've found something of his and I think he might want it back."

The screen went blank.

"Well, that wasn't at all ominous," Niall said.

"How the hell did they find us...?" Quirk demanded. "I shot up all the cameras!"

Toast ran over to the video screen and began entering commands into it. Shortly afterwards, the display changed to show the crowd of black Synths standing in the corridor, swaying slightly. "Uh oh," he said.

"Xerian... Xerian... the slugs are calling..." the voices moaned, louder now as they came through the monitor's speakers. "Join us... Hearken to the slugs..."

"I checked that camera on the way in!" Quirk yelped. "It was still destroyed!"

"Look at the edges of the picture," Toast said slowly. "That's all torn plastic. The shell of the camera may be all broken, but it looks like they've hidden a new sensor module inside it."