Staring From The Abyss
Marius nodded. “That is good.” He paused, saw that Halem expected something more, and said, “Found what?”
“The way out! An escape from this prison we are confined within. I have found it, I have found it, I have found it…” As Halem whirled, the scriptor frantically scribbled in its light book while the feed motes sparkled in clouds around the turning figure. It was like watching a man dance with fireflies.
But then, the fireflies went out and the scriptor dissolved.
At the same moment, Marius’s own feeds flared out.
He was suddenly situationally blind. The feeds flickered, trying to come back online.
“What’s going on?” asked Halem. “Is it a flare?”
Marius ran to the crystal dome. He looked out.
There.
A ship, fast burning towards Abyss station.
But even as he fixed the ship by sight, his feeds flared out again. Whatever this incoming ship was, it was able to blank out sensor arrays. Not many factions were able to do that.
“What’s wrong?”
Marius turned around to see Warq staring at him.
He gestured out into the black. “We have a visitor.”
Warq followed the gesture. His eyes widened as he saw the sliprunner flaring as it bled momentum to fix to the station’s Lagrange coordinates.
Warq paled. He turned towards Marius. “It’s come for me.”
But Marius grinned. The money for looking after Halem was more than he had ever dreamt of, but the job was boring beyond belief. Now it was about to get interesting.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?”
“The bridge.” Robbed of his feeds, Marius eye-checked the incoming ship: its inertial thrusters flared, once, bringing it to a stop relative to the Lagrange Point. Then, as he was about to turn away, he saw fresh flares, small ones, firing from the mid-port.
“Boarders.”
Marius grabbed Halem’s arm and started running.
Out in the treadway, alarms were flashing, sending message trails flickering past them. The station’s systems were crashing under EMF assault. Pulling Halem, Marius began running toward the ascensor. The treadway jerked beneath their feet, nearly sending them tumbling, then stopped entirely.
Suddenly, Marius found himself floating, Halem flailing beside him. He grasped a grab-hold and gripped Halem’s arm just as the backup gravity generators kicked in. The wrench of returning weight nearly pulled his grip free, but he held, and he held Halem, too, stopping him falling face flat to the treadway, then lowered him before dropping beside him.
Halem turned to his bodyguard. “If they can cut the gravity generators, what can’t they do?”
Marius reached to his waist and drew the culverin holstered there. “Take a shot from this.”
As they went, they passed other people, rushing this way and that, trying to get to their emergency stations. Some, so distressed they were not looking where they were going, Marius had to push out of the way. Others tried to stop them to ask what was happening, but Marius brushed past them.
The ascensor was still working; station systems had switched to backup routes which were more robust but less extensive—only a few treadways and less than half of the ascensors would still be working as the station diverted power and processing to maintaining life-support, inertial, and gravity systems.
They rode the ascensor up; then, stepping off, they made their way along the stuttering treadway toward the bridge.
Around them, as they went, warning signs fluttered through the air, trying to grab them as they passed. But Marius slapped them out of the way, leaving them in pieces that slowly reconstituted before seeking out someone else to warn that it was necessary to Attend Assigned Station or to Remember to Grab Hold When Using Unstable Ascensors.
Halem swore as a particularly insistent piece of advice telling him to Check Where the Nearest Secondary Breathing Equipment is Located wrapped itself around his face. He tore it off and flung the warning away.
“Who made these things mandatory?” he said.
Swatting advice to Remember Route to Emergency Pods aside, Marius said, “It’s general operating procedure for Abyss stations. The Varoush Combine manufactures them.”
“That’s one of our Combines.”
“I know.”
Still batting warnings aside, they continued along the treadway, steps alternating between long hops and labored strides as the backup gravity generators struggled to settle on the optimal inertial setting. It was a process that normally took a gravity engineer three or four rotations to tune, so it was no surprise that the automatic system was struggling. But not knowing how your weight would change with each step made walking difficult.
Marius checked his feeds. They were still down. But at least from the bridge he should be able to get some direct inputs from the station’s physical sensors to understand what was going on and the vector of the attack.
But the bridge port was closed.
No surprise there. The station was locked down.
“We can’t get in,” said Warq, looking around fearfully as if he expected to see some monster coming down the treadway after him.
“Hold on.”
Marius slid the access panel open. He touched the first joint of his third finger. The fingertip activated, he placed the probe on the access circuits. For a moment he saw the routes flashing in side-vision as electrons flowed down resistance channels. Then—click—he accessed the lock protocol.
The bridge port began to open, peeling back in layers.
Halem made to run in, but Marius grabbed and pulled him back just as twin beam shots sizzled out at them.
“Hold!” he shouted. “Home team here.”
From the bridge port, two nervous security guards peered, each holding their beamer ready.
Marius held up his hands. “See. It’s us.”
From behind the security guards, Marius heard Station Commander Shay shouting. “Get them in and lock down again.”
The guards stood aside and Marius dragged Warq onto the bridge, pausing to touch his probe to the port lock so that the door flared and closed, its leaves folding back into place.
“Gwerre, get over here.”
Marius turned to see Shay beckoning him.
“Stay there and don’t move.” He sat Halem on a chair and went over to Shay, pushing past the control staff hunched over displays, frantically trying to manipulate touch displays that were flashing out each time they tried to set them.
But before he could get to Shay, a hand grabbed Marius and stopped him.
“You’ve got to get me and the Honeys out of here. Here, take whatever you want.” Marius looked at the other hand, saw that it held an array of mint coins, and then up into the face of Standen Merrick Heywell the Third. The Honeys smiled at Marius.
“This,” “Is,” “So,” in unison, “Exciting.”
“Gwerre?”
Marius pressed Standen’s wrist here, here and here, cutting the man’s augments. He looked to the Honeys. “Hold him, ladies, while I sort this out.”
“Oh,” “We,” “Will,” and together, “Gladly!” In chorus: “The Station Commander said she’d make up for missing the conjunction.”
The Honeys giggled and started dragging Standen back from the control station, toward the cowering band of space tourists grouped around their epicene guide.
Shay looked past Gwerre at the identicals and shivered. “They still give me the creeps.”
Sliding into the seat beside her, Gwerre said, “At least they’re taking care of Honeybun.”
“Frankly, I’d rather be dealing with him than this.” Shay gestured to the feeds arrayed before her. “I have no idea what is going on.”
All the feeds were spiking and crashing, spiking and crashing again.
Shay pointed at the inputs. “It’s like there’s two giants fighting in my station’s circuits.”
“What it means,” said Marius, “is we’re blind on the outside. They’ve erased all the external sensor systems.” He pointed along the display panel. “But you’ve still got feeds from some of the internal sens…” The word trailed away as they saw the hull port symbol cycle from lock to open.
Shay looked at Marius. “They’re coming into the station.”
“Fire the mayday flares.”
“I can’t. All the controls are down.”
“They will work. They’re physical—no z-space feeds.” Marius got up. “I’ve just got to keep Warq out of their hands until help arrives.”
“Who are they?” asked Shay.
“Maybe Prospero. Maybe some other Pact faction. Doesn’t matter.” He made his way over to where Warq was sitting, still in the chair where he had put him. “Up we get. Time to move.”
“W-where are we going?” asked Halem.
“Somewhere they can’t follow us,” said Marius. He pointed to one of the grilles set into the walls of the bridge. “Into the vents.”
“Oh, no, I can’t,” said Halem, shaking his head. “I get claustrophobic.”
“It’s that or let whatever is after you, take you,” said Marius as he began removing the nearest grille cover. He turned toward Shay. “Try and keep them out for as long as possible.”
The Station Commander nodded.
The grille clattered to the floor, and Marius touched the first joint of his second finger so that his hand glowed softly with bioluminescence. He put his hand into the vent and looked, left and right and ahead.
“Clear.” He looked back to Halem. “Let’s go.”
“Y-you first.”
“Can,” “We,” “Come,” together, “Too?”
The Honeys, without Honeybun, were clustered around Halem.
Before Marius could say, “No,” the entry port through which he and Halem had come earlier suddenly bulged.
Marius gestured to the Honeys.
“Get him into the vent.”
Laughing, the Honeys picked up the struggling Halem and began pushing him into the tunnel. Seeing the port bulge, Halem did not struggle but helped pull himself into the vent.
The port bulged again.
Marius looked to Shay, standing and staring, shocked, at the port. Supersteel was one of the strongest materials humanity had developed, capable of enduring the repeated heat shock of multiple atmospheric re-entries. To see it bend like that was almost beyond comprehension.
“Open the port once we’re gone,” Marius shouted to the Station Commander. “Don’t resist.”
Shay Nahlek, hand to her mouth, nodded. All around, the station bridge crew stared at the bulging port door.
Part 3 coming on September 17, 2026!
About:
Edoardo Albert is a British writer of Italian and Sri Lankan descent. He writes about Britain in the early medieval period (between the Romans leaving and the Normans arriving), the 40th millennium in the Warhammer universe, and lots of other things besides. He enjoys hearing from his readers via social media or directly through this website (you can find the contact form here).
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