Taurags have eyes like that.
You were right the second time. This has stopped being a game.
YOU HAVE NO idea who to link up with and it’s likely that Citadel security will mistake you for an intruder yourself, Shuos uniform notwithstanding. But if there’s any chance your information is useful, you have to pass it on. The Citadel’s population is classified, along with other useful things like the number of toilets, but you wouldn’t be surprised if it housed over half a million people. The thought of them being in danger, strangers though they are, makes your stomach twist.
Your best bet is to head for the spatial stabilizer. Now that you realize the threat is real, the thought of hostiles in control of a Citadel stabilizer makes your heart constrict. They could separate the Citadel’s spatial building blocks, rearrange them to disadvantage the Shuos, even—if they crack the controls entirely—destroy the Citadel.
It’s not reassuring that this is the same technology you’ll have to rely on to reach the stabilizer, since it needs to be isolated from realspace. There’s no help for it. You hurry toward the next path.
This one requires you to climb up and down an elegant spiraling ramp that changes color from auburn to gold and then sly amber. Your knees feel unsteady, and you hate yourself for it. You keep expecting the ramp to vanish into a massless knot of nothing and strand you. As you step off the spiral, however, the world slants and you dash for a side corridor at the sound of gunfire.
The voice comes back without warning. You almost shoot the wall. “You made it, good,” it says. This time it’s communicating through your augment. “You’re there, right? Can you get in?” And then: “I think the senior staff—well, it doesn’t matter. You’re what’s available.”
The way the voice wavers makes you grind your teeth. “Firefight,” you say, identifying the weapons by the percussion they make as you let the augment transmit your subvocals. “Just got here, haven’t had time to scout.”
“I’ve been working the grid,” the voice says. “I can get in overrides, but you’ll have to work fast to take advantage before they freeze me out. And you’ll need physical access.”
Obviously, or they would have been able to handle matters remotely. “Servitor passages for maintenance?”
“Yes. I can open one of those. Tight squeeze, though.”
The voice has the presence of mind to send you a newer, declassified map. At this point it’s not like either of you cares about getting into trouble with higher-ups. “Listen,” you say, determined not to give in to the awful mixture of pain and nausea despite the medical assists. “How bad is it, if the senior staff are...?”
Brief silence. “I haven’t heard from Mikodez or any of the senior staff since the alert began,” the voice says. “I’m lying low right now. They didn’t hire me to be brave.” Not the most inspiring thing to say, but you appreciate the honesty. “I’m hoping the other stabilizers are all right, but they’re still attempting to secure this one.”
“I’ll do what I can,” you say.
The next moves happen in a blur.
Scorch blasts.
Narrow passage. Claustrophobia and bruised elbows are the least of your worries.
You approach the hatch. The firefight sounds like it’s died down. You’re not optimistic about the survival of your Shuos comrades. It’s hard to see through the slits and you don’t dare query local scan lest you be detected.
You pry the hatch open, wishing it didn’t creak so much. Most of the bodies in the control center wear Shuos red-and-gold. A few have violet eyes and are dressed in the strange articulated suits.
The voice again. “Are you in?”
“Yes. They didn’t stick around, though.”
“That’s not good,” it says. “One moment.” Then: “The good news is that they couldn’t crack the stabilizer’s control system. The bad news is that there’s—there’s more of them. A lot more of them. Their swarm, fleet, horde, whatever their term is. They’ve all arrived. They’re taking out the orbital defenses before they make a move planetside, I guess.”
It’s growing harder and harder to think, just when it’s most important. “We can use the stabilizer against them—”
“Too many of them and not enough time. Unless—”
You know exactly what they’re thinking of. Unmoor the stabilizer and aim it at the Citadel’s heart, where the power cores are. Turn space inside-out. The whole thing would go up in a tumult of fire. It’d also scorch a significant portion of the planet, but the explosion would hurt the Taurag invaders and buy time for a defense to be mustered elsewhere.
Just to make sure that you and the voice understand each other, you outline the idea.
“Yes,” the voice says. “I’ll talk you through the procedure.”
It takes you several minutes to figure out the control system even so, because the voice only has access to an outdated version of the manual, and the system interface was overhauled at some point.
You think about orbital mechanics. If you set off the power cores right now, the conflagration will singe Shuos Academy’s main campus on the planet’s second-largest continent.
Shuos Academy comes to mind because you just graduated, naturally, but there are a lot of population centers that would be affected. It’s easy enough to access a map of the planet and the associated census, start adding up the numbers. How high would the kill count get?
After a moment, the voice interrupts. “Have you done it? Is there a technical issue? Of all the times—”
“I’m not doing it,” you say over the dull roar in your ears. Your hands have started shaking violently. You right the nearest chair and sink into it before your knees can give out.
The voice’s silence is distinctly baffled.
“Open a line to the Taurags,” you say. “Talk to them or something. The Taurags won’t hit nonmilitary targets down there. They insist on that kind of thing. If our enemy wouldn’t do it, I’m fucked if I’ll hit the button myself.”
“Are you out of your mind? That invasion force isn’t going to stop here!” The voice suddenly becomes frantic. “Or is it that you’re scared to die when we all go up in flames? I don’t enjoy the idea any more than you do, but we’ve got a duty—”
“That’s not it,” you say. “I mean, I don’t want to die. But that isn’t the reason. There are better ways to win than toasting a bunch of civilians. We’ve learned that much from our enemy. Maybe it’s too late for us here to find a new strategy, but someone else will.”
The voice drops silent, and you wonder if it’s given up on you, but after a while it resumes. “We don’t have much time left,” it says, low and fierce. “There’s another squad headed your way, they’re almost there. If you’re going to do something, you have to do it now. And—” Silence again.
Getting up hurts. You’re sure that something’s bleeding inside. The augment confirms this, although it’s being awfully unhelpful about the nature of the injury. Under the circumstances it’s not like it matters.
You’ve had time to survey the room, consider its layout. You settle on a position and lower yourself painfully into place. If the pistol gets any heavier you’re going to drop it.
Footsteps. They’re attempting to be quiet, but the slither-scale sound of that articulated stuff can’t be silenced entirely. You’ve never been more awake.
There’s only one of you, but you might as well take out as many as you can on the way out.