An Obsidian Sky (12 page)

She stopped
just next to the maintenance access screen. Rather than touch it in
the conventional sense she held her hand lightly at a random point
just below it. She closed her eyes. After about a seconds delay the
screen flickered and granted her access. She turned to me and said,
‘see no problem.’

I went ahead
of her into the access point. It was a very narrow space within
which all that was contained was a ladder. I started to climb.
Though by Earth standards this was a very large ship, it was
nothing by comparison to Ascension. In fact, after about a minute’s
climb, we were almost there. The ladder ended on a small ledge with
a door at the other end. I climbed up and onto it. There was just
enough room for Blue Dawn besides me. She touched a non-specific
point on the door and it too obeyed her will and opened.

I stepped into
the science level and was suddenly confronted by a tremendous force
borne against my head. It knocked me over. Struggling upwards I saw
Blue Dawn hold her hand out and fire leapt from it, instantly
incinerating my aggressor.

I looked ahead
and five more of the ships former crew were bearing down upon her.
Possessed by some malevolent narcotic they slammed their fists
against her repeatedly. One bent its head forward and bit down upon
her face as she tried to push it away. In a moment an angel had
appeared. With a most graceful movement of its hands it hurled one
of the figures meters across the hall. Its head hit the wall with a
crunch.

Behind me
something had got hold of my leg. I reach out for my lancer but it
was too far away. I turned my head to see a woman in medical
uniform grasping dreadfully for my shoes. A heavenly hand dropped
onto her head and lifted her high. In a serene moment of beauty she
looked into the angels eyes. A contented wonderful look came across
her face. She breathed in, in a state of absolute serenity. She
sighed gently, her muscles relaxing, never to move again. The angel
lifted me to my feet with one hand. I rushed for my lancer.

More and more
of the crew were descending upon Blue Dawn. In the frenzy of
violence I could only make out that her face was extremely
bloodied. Occasionally I spotted the blue of her dress
hammer-fisting one of her attackers. In the time that it had taken
me to recognise this, I had raised my lancer. Clicking the weapon’s
toggle button to wide-dispersal I saw the reticule lock on and I
fired.

Bursting from
the muzzle a thousand-thousand shards of plasma flew forward,
sparkling like sped up confetti. As each point of this blizzard of
light impacted upon something it exploded with a tremendous
percussive force. The walls, the roof, the floor, the mass of
bodies all exploded, hurled around at unimaginable speeds. Many
disintegrated. Metal panels launched from their housings left and
right. In that moment I saw that an angel had its wings surrounding
her. When the last body fell I saw that she was still alive.

She was badly
hurt. Blood streamed from the gore of her face. With a flick of her
hand she motioned the direction for me to travel. Her angel
assisted her in her limp in that direction. Matching her pace and
speed I travelled alongside her. In front two figures rounded the
corner. I shot them both automatically. Two trigger pulls, both
were gone. We got to the infirmary.

Curiously by
the time we had reached the door I noticed that Blue Dawn had began
to walk normally. Much of her skin had returned and she had
definitely stopped bleeding. I opened my mouth but she cut me off.
‘You would have thought that if my body could live this long
without aging and shoot fire from its hands; it might also be able
to heal a little faster than yours too.’ Without another word she
placed her hand underneath the controls and the doors opened.

The infirmary
was pitch dark. Only faint traces of light were visible at all.
These came from the remaining active screens. Some of the displays
were at floor level, indicating some kind of commotion had taken
place. Blue Dawn removed something from her pocket. It was a little
ball no wider than an inch. She threw it up into the air. But it
did not come down. Instead it stayed floating above us.

She snapped
her fingers. The ball exploded with light and the room became
visible. The reception was an utter mess. Two nurses lay on the
floor. The one on the left of me had been stabbed several times.
Her crimson blood stained her white and grey suit. Her red cross
was almost invisible in amongst the blood. Her mouth was open. Her
death, it appeared from the expression upon her face, had
definitely not been quick.

Dawn turned
towards me and said, ‘George, the door into the medical section
appears to be barred. They may have mounted an effective
barricade.’ She pointed towards the sealed doorway with an
outstretched finger and the little ball flowed over in that
direction. The door was indeed well sealed. Where they would
normally spilt apart in the middle, someone had applied
considerable heat to it and effectively welded it shut.

‘So how do we
get in?’ I asked.

‘Perhaps we
won’t need to. All we need to do is to check that they are alright.
It is probably safer for them to be in there alone, than out here
with us.’ She began pacing around the room. Though she would not
bend her head down, her eyes were clearly searching for something.
I turned around and hit the door control. The entrance to the
infirmary rolled shut. I placed as much as I was able to in front
of the door. At least it would serve to block the entrance should
someone else compromise the door controls and try and get
inside.

Whilst I
waited for her to find what she needed I thought back upon the days
before all of this. The days before it had all gone wrong on Earth.
I remembered the heat of those days. The thick atmosphere. The
smell of carbon and dust. And yet despite all of this it had been a
great time. It had been a good time. Adrian and I had been great
friends. We had done everything together. We liked the same films.
Enjoyed the same sports.

I had met him
on my first year of college. He had appeared suddenly next to me in
the entrance to the accommodation blocks. His hair was long and
eyes a dazzling green. He was taller than me and had the most
wonderful smile. Whenever he smiled it opened up a world of joy
within the people that he was around. To many it seemed as though
the world revolved around his smile. We had been friends for about
two years when it happened. The story was simple. It always is. It
is so much easier to destroy perfection that it is to make it.

We had been
celebrating. It was a night out. The club music was pumping. The
holos flashed mesmerising colours about the room. Half formed
images made of light strobed around. We had left the building for
some air. The back alleys had been dark. It was too late for street
lighting, part of some efficiency drive. For a moment he had looked
at me, our faces had gotten close, in an attempt to see the truth
hidden behind each other’s eyes. A group in the crowd had taken
exception to this. Their eyes spoke of a hatred I had never know
people could posses. They were armed. I shouted for Adrian to
follow me. I ran and ran and ran until all the air seemed to have
left me forever.

When I stopped
I could not find him. He was nowhere to be seen. I looked around
and around. I shouted his name at the top of my lungs. I searched
for hours. Then I got the call. It was his mother. Apparently the
gang had shot him five times. It was a miracle that he had
survived. They said he may not ever recover. Perhaps it was a love
story and perhaps it was not. I had loved many people and lost many
people. But I had never felt a loss so keenly as this.

The truth was
that he eventually recovered physically but never mentally. From
that moment on, he could never see me again, nor even look at me.
Each time he looked at me his eyes filled with a haunting mixture
of despair and anger, and I hated myself for it. After that I went
off the rails. There was no stopping me, not the drink, not the
drugs. I never forgave myself and with a rising realisation I
uncovered another truth within my life. I had spent all this time
searching for my salvation, searching the depths of Bagata,
searching the heights of Ascension and all I needed to redeem
myself lay right here. Perhaps even a few meters away.

‘Aha’ exalted
Blue Dawn. She was behind the reception desk staring intently at
the screen. ‘The systems beyond that door have been physically
separated from the rest of the vessel. However there is still an
old fibre line in place.’

‘Why would
there be a fibre line?’ I asked quizzically.

‘The creators
of this vessel intended it to be extremely durable. Everything has
a back-up. The final level of electronic redundancy is a small
bandwidth line. It does not require much power and so it is likely
to go undetected by saboteurs.’ She began to play with some of the
wiring. I noticed that she had taken apart part of the desk and was
fiddling with the components that would have been sealed inside.
Then I heard a series of beeps. They were at regular intervals from
one another.

‘Hello,’ a
voice announced. ‘Who is this?’

I could not
recognise the voice. ‘This is George Engeltine, Special Resources
from Eternis Systems,’ I replied. ‘Are you okay in there?’

Abruptly a
voice I recognised well came over the speaker. ‘George! Is it
really you? Thank fate, it is you. Man am I glad to see you. Where
are you?’

‘Adrian!’ my
voice croaked a little with emotion. ‘Adrian, I’m just on the other
side of the door. We can’t get to you. I want you to listen to me.
I want you to hear what I am saying to you. We are going to get you
out of there. But for the moment, until the ship is safe, you are
better off in here.’

‘Okay’ replied
Adrian with fear in his voice, ‘what happened? The doctor got some
sort of report and just bolted. Then one of the nurses came in. He
was talking to me. Then he just seemed to stop. He was very quiet
and just stared and stared off into space. I tried to get his
attention but he wouldn’t answer. Then he started to giggle a
little. He got a syringe of something. I don’t know what. He kept
laughing, he was coming towards me. A guardsman shot him in the
back. Then he sealed me in here. The girl that is with me is called
Julian. She got injured by another member of the crew. George what
is happening? The doctors explained that the world is gone. That
there are these Artefacts...’ he could not continue.

‘Yes Adrian. I
am sorry. It is all true. We all knew it would happen eventually,
that the Artefact would get to them. We just did not think that it
would happen so soon.’

‘Adrian,’ Blue
Dawn cut in. ‘Have you experienced any headaches, nausea or
repetition of thought. Are you or have you recently dwelled upon
something that seemed as though it made no sense, as though you had
a desire for something you never knew existed. Do you feel any
sense of extreme tension and unease, outside of the reaction one
would normally expect from this situation?’

‘No, no, not
at all. I mean, I am feeling some of these things but nothing more
than I should be.’

‘Interesting,’
Blue Dawn intoned quietly.

‘What?’ I said
urgently.

‘Symptoms of
infection usually occur after two days for those who are
unshielded. The crew lasted a week before it got the better of them
and they were at least partially shielded. The command
infrastructure of this vessel was not based on individual merit,
but on probable longevity. Thus Knightly and the rest of the
command have survived longer, but are still showing symptoms.’ She
turned to me and whispered, ‘it seems he might have some sort of
natural defence. I do not know if he has formed an immunity or not.
But nothing has ever done so before. This is very interesting.’

She then
turned to one of the angels and asked, ‘what do you think?’ But the
angel merely turned away from her. ‘Didn’t think you’d break your
silence,’ she goaded. The angel turned to face her again regarding
her with mild curiosity.

‘Exactly’ she
continued. ‘Why I thought that you would really try and help us is
beyond me. Since the beginning you never spoke, but I know you can.
And when it was all ending, instead of offering to help me you
turned away. What has changed, to make you want to help him? You
rarely obeyed my commands before.’ The angel gave her a stern look.
It ruffled its feathers and stretched out its wings. But it did not
leave and I for one was grateful that they hadn’t lived up to her
expectations.

I thumbed my
comm unit. ‘Aeniah, have you reached the CIC?’ I asked.

Aeniah’s voice
came through crackling, ‘not...quite...yet.’ There was the sound of
automatic weapons fire in the background. ‘Stuck in a bottleneck.
Damn those Equinox things move quick’ the sound of her pistol made
me jump. ‘Motherfucker.’

‘Aeniah, we
have found Adrian, I will move to your location for fire support,’
I responded.

‘Sounding like
a real guardsman already,’ she laughed, ‘alright we are in the
causeway on the mid floor. Come from the stern or you
will
get fucked up.’

‘Okay Adrian
is secure in the infirmary. Heading to you now.’ I looked across to
Blue Dawn and she nodded. Shouldering my lancer I moved to look
outside the infirmary doors. As I did so something thudded against
my body. I felt as though I had been punched. With difficulty I got
back into the safety of the room. A crimson stain was developing
along my clothes.

‘George!’
shouted Blue Dawn with concern. She began to inspect my wounds. One
of the angels moved its hand and placed it upon my injury. With
shock I realised that I had been shot through the chest. The
Equinox label on the angels dress glowed as its hand became
shrouded in a contained light. With a throbbing sensation the room
around me became light and I saw into the heart of everything.