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  There were only a few, seemingly randomly chosen, sections where the ancient Drifter machines were producing a breathable atmosphere, and they were all on the higher levels. The lower Altia went, down ramps and wide, shallow staircases, the more often she had to put her helmet back on. Eventually she was wearing the helmet almost continuously. She just walked, looking left, right, above and below as she went, like a tourist admiring the architecture of a beautiful city.

  She saw structures that she recognized from her time studying the Drifter System. There were machines that she knew the shape of very well, though she could only guess at the function, and there were structures that were completely new. The hieroglyphics looked similar, but there were differences that she immediately noticed. It was all fascinating.

  As she walked, she came to a giant auditorium-like space. There was no seating, but the shallow steps, common in the structure, formed a semicircle around a central area. The central area was entirely taken up by a stone obelisk, with metal panels in every face, about three meters in height.

  Altia went to the center of the chamber, and stumbled for a second on the uneven floor. She looked down to see giant vents or drains in the floor. Each slit of each vent sealed by its own long, thin little door. Some were open, a light breeze coming from the vent, but most were closed. Altia had no idea what they might be for, and couldn't come up with even the wildest guess about why the room was designed the way it was.

  Was it something that meant the room needed to be hosed down after use, she wondered, but then discarded the notion, knowing better than to jump at lurid interpretations of Drifter technology. Keep an open mind, she told herself, and look for evidence.

  She went over to the obelisk and attempted to read the hieroglyphics. She didn't have any of her databases with her, or any other tools and she wasn't making much progress, until she noticed one section that seemed to be specially simplified, as if for a child. Altia made a note of her location and started to record some audio for a future report.

  "This part roughly translates as something like," Altia paused, collecting her thoughts, "And their punishment shall be by the chimeras they themselves created."

  Chimeras, punishments, simplified warnings. She looked down at the drains, and wondered if there perhaps wasn't some lurid use that the room had been put to by the Drifters after all.

  She stared at the obelisk trying to unlock some more of its meaning, then movement caught her eye. It took her a moment to realize what it was, a shadow. There was a large shadow on the wall opposite her, and it had moved slightly. She realized that the shadow must be being cast by something behind her. She had the irrational feeling that it might be best not to look. If she just ignored the shadow, whatever was casting it might just go away. But she forced herself to turn, to look over her shoulder.

  She saw a Buzzer, half way down the shallow steps and moving slowly, creeping up on her. The Buzzer recoiled, realizing that it had been spotted. It drew a knife, which looked dangerous, though more of a tool than a weapon.

  Altia threw her data tablet at it and ran.

  Chapter 9

  ––––––––

  The Tarazet Deep Space Navy had a firmer and firmer grip on the Ice Moon. More friendly spaceships arrived in orbit every day and the forces on the surface swelled and swelled. Their position was becoming unassailable, life for a slug was becoming routine.

  Things had been following the same pattern for a while, sleeping on Fortress in spartan quarters, being woken, sent out to deal with whatever Buzzers had gotten too close, then back inside to eat and sleep. Fortress had repair droids, friendly little metal crabs, who looked after the drones between encounters, recharging, reloading and repairing. Even the most badly damaged of his drones now had a new nose and a new mass driver.

  They had been taking heavy casualties to start with, drone after drone throwing armor and debris across the landscape surrounding Fortress, but now they were well practiced at getting out of Fortress in plenty of time to take up positions, set up a crossfire and mow down approaching Buzzers. Their skills hadn't been developed a moment too soon, what with only seven drones left.

  Knave's favorites were the two that had been dug out of the ice. He drew teeth on the side of them in black paint. One set like a shink, a sea predator from his home planet, and one set like a bansa, a mythical creature from legend. He soon took to calling them by these two names.

  "Shink," he said to the drone he had drawn predator teeth on, "move those Buzzer carcases further way from Fortress, and see if you can hide them in a ravine or something. The piles of Buzzers out there are giving me the heebie jeebies."

  He turned to the other drone.

  "Bansa," the drone turned a few eyes to look in his direction, "You go out with him, cover him while he works."

  The drone beeped an acknowledgment. It wasn't the first time it had vocalized, but it was the first time they had done it where Fortress could hear them. Up to that point, the drones had only ever used laser communications or radio in front of the spaceship AI.

  "I didn't know they vocalized with you," Fortress said, "I guess you've been accepted into the pack. Although you don't have much of a pack left. The vocalization means they like you, I've seen it before."

  ***

  It was two days later when Knave was woken by the usual proximity alarms. He had come to be very familiar with them. He, Shink, Bansa, and the others had become a well oiled team. They had been victorious in all their recent encounters. The worst thing that had happened in the last few days was that Shink had taken a little superficial damage, but mostly cracks and burning on the armor. Fortress was brimming with ammo and replacement parts, and it felt like they could carry on this way for days, or even weeks, though, deep down, Knave knew his luck would eventually run out.

  "Okay," he mumbled, "Here we go again."

  "No wait," Fortress said, "They're friendlies."

  A large monitor, near the flight couch where Knave was resting, sprang to life. It showed a suit of Tarazet battle armor of the type worn by lowly slugs like himself, and three wolfhound drones.

  "That looks like somebody from the Galaxy Dog," Knave said, "At least the equipment looks right."

  "Confirmed," Fortress said, "the human is called Henrik."

  "Henrik," Knave virtually yelled.

  He wasn't particularly fond of Henrik and their relationship had never developed to the point where he considered Henrik a friend, but he found he was suddenly very glad to see him. He went down to the bay and opened the huge ramp. His suit established a laser communications connection to Henrik, even though he was still out of sight in the driving snow.

  "Welcome aboard Henrik," Knave yelled.

  The voice that came back was distorted by lost packets of information as flurries of snow interrupted their laser-light connection. Knave was quite glad. It sounded like Henrik was using some quite strong language.

  ***

  Knave was alone on the bridge watching the snow blow past the front view ports. he wasn't wearing his armor. The Buzzer whispers were still penetrating into Fortress, just as through his suit speakers, but he had learned to ignore them, to blend them out.

  The situation on the ground was becoming very quiet, with fewer and fewer attacks, as Tarazet ground forces built up. the operation to take the moon was turning into a mopping up operation. Heldin, Knave heard, was promoted, as both tiers of the military hierarchy above her had been wiped out during the descent and early fighting around Fortress. She was made a sector commander, with a newly defined sector as her own little realm, a chunk of the north slope of the mountain.

  "Surface combat is almost over. Now we'll see if this moon is actually worth anything to the Buzzers," As he joined Knave on the bridge Henrik said, "If they really want it, they'll come and take it back."

  "Cheerful as ever, Henrik," Knave said, "I'll leave you to it. I've got to go out on patrol now."

  "I'm sure we can think of an excuse to get
you out of it, kid," Henrik grinned.

  "I'm saving my excuses to get out of even worse duties later on," Knave said, and left to go suit up in his armor.

  Knave had to go out on the snow, patrolling, even though contacts were getting increasingly few now. Knave wasn't keen but he knew better than to buck military discipline. He was out on the ice and patrolling with minutes to spare before his scheduled start.

  The atmosphere above him was full of dog-fighting superiority craft, keeping Buzzer units away from the descending dropships. It was like a rain shower of dropships, creating a settlement bigger than many of the cities he had seen. Each dropship was as big as an ore carrier back on his homeworld, and there were a lot of huge ore carriers serving the routes from his home world. The snow was driving in sheets against his faceplate, but the light show in the sky was so intense that it penetrated through.

  Knave paused in his stride to watch a dropship descend. He wasn't supposed to stop, so he put his suit on full auto, suddenly becoming basically a passenger. This was frowned on of course, but Henrik had shown him how to beat any oversight routines that might be looking for lazy slugs riding around on full auto. All you had to do was give the suit a secondary instruction, to count the dropships, for example. The suit would then move its head in a very natural way, looking around to get the best estimate of the dropships encountered on patrol. It didn't look entirely human, but it was good enough to fool any camp discipline routines that might be watching through a nearby camera. It wouldn't fool a full AI like Fortress for a minute of course, but Knave didn't think the AI would report him.

  Henrik usually just slept as he was carried around by his suit, but Knave was looking up at the sky. Watching the dropships come down was a sight that never ceased to be spectacular. The one he was watching at that moment was a Wasoon class, a real monster, and it was coming down on gravitic drive alone. It was something he never got used to, seeing such a huge lump of metal just hanging in the air. A Wasoon-class dropship could hold fifty grav tanks and still have space for some drones, an imposing lump of metal by any standards, just hovering a little above them all, but most of the other slugs patrolling around and busy with various tasks were paying no attention to it.

  Knave, along with his two favorite drones, was guarding a marshaling area for tugs. These powerful spaceships, not as big as the dropships but massive enough, would nose against any spaceships that had gotten out of position and nudge them back into alignment in the huge swarm of metal above his head. There was only one tug resting on the ground, while dozens of others were working overhead, and that was because its engines were splayed out for maintenance or repair, Knave had no idea which. Some vital fluid had leaked out of the grounded tug and stained the snow a livid yellow, too dark for piss, but close. It was the usual type of duty Knave was given, low responsibility for a disengaged slug who wasn't going anywhere, in terms of promotion, any time soon. The sort of duty you could do in your sleep, especially if your suit was on full auto.

  Knave was distracted from watching spaceships sliding gracefully over his head by the approach of another slug. The slug had a big communications array sprouting from his or her back. There was a gold stripe painted right across the upper body. That meant the person was a few rungs above him in the military hierarchy, but not one of the top brass. The higher grades had various amounts of gold painted on their helmets.

  "I guess they're onto our dropship counting," Knave muttered.

  The figure approached and stopped in his path. Knave switched over to manual as gracefully as he could, and kept patrolling till he reached where the person was waiting.

  "Wake up slug. Switch that suit over to manual,” a female voice said, "You Knave?"

  Knave's armor told him that the officer was pinging his suit, looking for handshake information. Knave gave the okay, allowing access to his name, rank and serial number. The officer could just have easily demanded the information, and it was strange to be asked. Officers didn't routinely bother, just taking the information they needed. Knave started to wonder what was going on. The officer told Knave to follow her.

  "I haven't completed my patrol," Knave informed her.

  "Forget the patrol," she said simply, "You've been reassigned."

  Knave followed her to a grounded dropship, and inside, she took him to a rack holding a suit of armor.

  "Strip," she said, "Your old armor goes with me and you get this."

  Knave cracked the seals on his armor and climbed out and down.

  "What is this?" Knave asked.

  "It's ultra-compact assault armor type seven, most of you slugs call it a slim suit," the woman said.

  "I know what it is. I just don't know why you are giving it to me."

  "I don't need a reason," she said, "Just put it on and follow me."

  Knave stood in front of the armor, a confused expression on his face. The armor split down the front and the lapels, just below the helmet ring, peeled aside invitingly.

  "Go on," the woman said, "Climb in."

  Knave did what he was told. It was entirety intuitive, and he was wearing the armor, all done up except for the helmet, in less than a minute.

  "Don't put the helmet on unless there is real and imminent danger," the woman said.

  In her battlefield suit, she now towered over him. She picked a helmet off a rack and it looked like a toy in the massive fist of her armor.

  "Just hold it at your side in your none-gun hand. That way, if anything hits the fan, you can reach for your weapon with one hand while jamming on the helmet with the other."

  "So I have to carry this around the whole time?" Knave asked, taking the helmet from her.

  "Yep, control doesn't like helmeted personnel in secure areas."

  "Oh," Knave said, the penny dropping, "So I'm being sent to a secure area."

  It had happened before. He had once spent a very uneventful month guarding an admiral's collection of sculptures, though the sculpture park had been external so they hadn't bothered to move him from battlefield armor. He just stomped around in the giant armor among the delicate sculptures until the kinks were ironed out of the automated guards that were being custom designed for the job. It had been a cushy little gig. The thought that he might be getting another similar nice little duty led to a big smile spreading across his face. The woman didn't confirm or deny his guess, just carried on making sure he was assigned the right gear.

  "Obviously, you won't be carrying a mass driver around during your new duty," she said, "You'll be equipped with this."

  She reached into the racking again and brought out a blaster pistol.

  "Let's hope I don't need to use this peashooter," Knave said.

  She smiled.

  “Sure, it isn't a mass driver, and I'd avoid long-range engagements, but book some time on the range and get used to it. At close range, this thing has quite a bit of stopping power. If you can shoot straight, you can do some damage with it."

  "Okay," Knave said, but his voice was unconvinced.

  "That's everything," she said, "Go that way. There's a transport waiting for you. Your personal stuff is on board. Good luck with whatever it is they've got you doing."

  "Thanks," Knave said, and wandered off in the direction she was pointing.

  After a few wrong turns, he found a docking bay with a transport sitting at the center. There was no crew and there were no other passengers but it was the only transport in the bay. He walked across the floor of the bay towards it and was rewarded with the sight of a hatch opening and a ramp extending to receive him. He waited a moment then walked up the ramp and inside, where he was greeted by a voice coming over internal speakers. It was distorted and metallic, but male. Knave guessed it was the vehicle's computer, and that it would be piloting the transport, though he didn't know for sure because it didn't bother to introduce itself.

  "Where have you been?"

  "Looking for this transport," Knave said.

  "Why didn't you put your helmet o
n? It would have guided you."

  "They told me never-"

  "It doesn’t matter," the voice said, "Just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride. It won't take long."

  Knave found the passenger compartment, at the third attempt because the computer didn't bother to help him with directions. He found a seat by a window, just one of a hundred seats, all empty.

  He could see through the window that they had already left the docking bay and were traveling around the base of the mountain and slightly upwards.

  Up ahead, he saw structures, Buzzer structures he guessed, and the transport was heading for a triangular bay door in the side of one of the bigger buildings. The bay door split in half, one half sliding upwards, the other half sliding downwards to allow the shuttle into the bay. The transport landed silently in the center of a large space, empty apart from a second transport over by one of the walls and a couple of small robots stacking crates.

  The door in the shuttle opened again and the ramp extended.

  "Out," the vehicle's computer said.

  "And then, go where do what?" Knave asked.

  "No idea," the metallic voice said, "and not my problem. I just know you get out here. Don't forget your stuff."

  It took Knave a while to find his personal things, again with no help from the vehicle's computer. It was a pitifully small selection of odds and ends in a big canvas bag. Knave shouldered the bag, checked his blaster pistol in its holster and gathered up his helmet in his off hand.

  He descended the ramp of the transport, which closed its door, retracted its ramp and immediately lifted off using its secondary gravitic engines as soon as he was out.

  Knave looked around the bay. Apart from the huge door the transport had entered and exited by, there was just the one other transport and the two robots. The bay itself was silent and empty. Knave waited a good ten minutes, to see if someone would come along to collect him, then went over and had a look at the other transport. There were no opening doors or extending ramps this time, so he went over to one of the robots. It was taking components out of a stack and then stacking them again somewhere else. It looked like busy work to Knave.