Collective Ekoes / Chapter 05 (Text)

Even as she raced through the dark streets with Abel's blood dripping over her arms, moving flat-out toward the only medical supplies in a thousand klicks, she knew she was throwing her life away. Everything she’d worked for, everything she’d accomplished, gone.

She knew it, but she didn't stop. 

Someone must have shot the woman holding the detonator. Or she decided to go out on her own terms. Either way, she vaporized everyone in the hall not wearing mil-spec armor. All the dots on her visor were red. Even the Zhūquè hadn’t been enough to save Haokip. Berthold and Ackles were still alive, but showed wounded, their comms offline. 

Second and Third teams, out searching for the eko camp, immediately pinged for updates. They wouldn’t yet know what was happening. Cass ordered them to return to the site, tend the wounded, and hold the scene until the support ships arrived. 

They'd soon realize Cass had deserted. Grabbed her murderous brother and fled. And Ackles, who was hurt but looked to be moving, would waste no time taking charge. 

She’d abandoned her team. Betrayed them to protect her idiot brother. 

She was a traitor. 

And while maybe not as bad as these citizens who came to deliver themselves to the enemy, but also somehow worse. Because she was Strazhi. Supposed to be the best of the best. 

It’d make everyone look bad. 

There’d be a court-martial, public and brutal, the outcome predetermined. They’d strip her Faith score down to nothing, condemn her to Narod. 

But first they had to catch her. 

She could only pray Mama and Father wouldn’t suffer for her crimes. There’d be repercussions, that was unescapable. But she hoped her parents would understand why she’d done what she had. After all, they'd been the ones who taught her to protect her family above all else.

General al-Jarrah would come after her, no doubt about that. But she and Abel had a head start. The question was how to use it.

Cass glanced down at her brother, cradled against her armor. His eyes were heavy, his face contorted from the pain, but still he smirked when he noticed her looking down at him through her visor.

“That maybe got a little out of hand,” he said. It was the only apology she’d get. 

“Maybe a little,” she agreed. “But I’ve got you.”

“I know you do,” he said, and coughed. Hard, raspy bursts that spewed blood from his mouth.

A countdown had started in her head the instant Ackles had fired. Death was only minutes away. Abel's bowels were likely punctured, liver or kidneys damaged. But those wounds wouldn’t kill him immediately. Sepsis would come later. First priority was stopping the blood loss.  

She ran straight to the militia landing craft. Abel moaned as she set him down next to it. There wasn’t time to figure out the lock codes, so she ripped the rear hatch off, grabbed the medkit, lifted Abel’s shirt and sprayed his bloody abdomen and back with biogel, letting it set for just a second before wrapping him in compression bandages. Still, she didn’t think it would be enough. The gel was for flesh wounds, not massive internal bleeding. 

His face was pale and sweaty. He must have been in agony, but he didn’t complain. When she was done, she hit his shoulder with a painkiller hypo. His pupils dilated, and his mouth went slack.

“That’s all better,” he mumbled. “Thanks, Cassie.”

She patted his leg and took a moment to assess. 

They were stranded in a remote part of the planet, with no medical care, and a hostile force at their backs. 

She considered stuffing into the militia transport, but she couldn’t fly the thing wearing her armor. Besides, reinforcements were coming, militia and Strazhi both. The planet-hopper wouldn’t outrun anything for long. 

But even if she had a ship, what then?

Nowhere in the Collective was safe for them now. 

What had she done?

There was no escape. She should just surrender, hope Support arrived in time to save Abel—but her gut seized at the thought. 

Cass had an idea. A terrible idea, but what other choice was there? Terrible was better than surrender. Surrender meant death for them both.  

She recalled the drones, set the drop pods into a maintenance cycle, and locked the controls. The purr of the jungle went a notch quieter as the drones docked and the low standby hum of the pods shut down. The squad markers  went gray as the feed dropped. The pods would be out of commission for seventy-five minutes while they ran diagnostics. Ackles wouldn’t be able to restart them until it was done. She and Abel had until then to get out of range.

As her last act as a Strazhi Lieutenant, she deleted herself from the team feed. She wouldn’t know where they were, or what they were saying, but they wouldn’t be able to find her either, not until the pods came back online.

Then that was it. She'd officially deserted. 

Cass shook Abel by the shoulder and his head popped up like he’d been in the middle of a nap.

“I’m up,” he said, groggy. He blinked, then focused on Cass. “Cassie? What are you doing here?”

“I need your help,” Cass said, trying to keep the concern off her face. “Do you know where the eko camp is?”

Eko missionaries usually set up a base of operations. Shelter. Supplies. Medical equipment. Sometimes a landing craft.       

“Camp?” His eyes blurred through her. “Oh yeah. The bit-heads. We sure killed the hell out of those eko bastards.” He flashed her a lopsided smile.

“You sure did. But how about their camp? Did you clear it out too?”

“Nah,” he slurred, shifting in her arms. “Was empty. They were all in the town. Caught ‘em in the middle of their extraction. An’ we killed the hell out of them. Wait—” he started, trying to rise. “What ‘appened to the traitors we caught? Need to tag and bag 'em for transport.”

“They’re handled,” Cass said, fighting her waning patience. One of the teams would be coming to investigate why the network had gone down. They needed to move. “Did the ekoes have a ship?” 

This was their one chance to escape the planet. If the ekoes had a landing craft, maybe she could commandeer it. 

“Hidden.” He scoffed. “Under a tarp.” 

An instant of relief surged through her. “Great. And where was the camp again?”

Abel lay back, nodding. “South-southeast. ‘Bout five klicks. By the river. Wan’ me to show you?”

He tried once again to rise, winced, and fell back. 

“I sure do, but I need to carry you,” Cass said as she gathered him up in her arms. The armor barely felt his weight. 

Carrying Abel over the rough terrain—say ten minutes to cover five klicks. It would take time for the squad to organize, then search eighty square kilometers of thick jungle.

There was a chance. She could still keep them safe.

She just needed to find that camp. With Abel’s added weight, the Zhūquè could only make short airborne hops. She jumped up and down through the canopy, maxing her thrusters over the treetops until they red-lined, then falling back to the jungle floor to run while they cooled. There were no signs of pursuit, but that wouldn’t hold for long. 

She headed west at first, bouncing through the jungle to give her team a false sense of where she was headed. When she came to the river running south, she followed it, keeping below the treeline.  

Abel was slipping in and out of consciousness. Sensors showed his blood pressure soaring as his heartbeat weakened. She was losing him.

Cass picked up speed, running as fast as she dared, using her thrusters to skip in long leaps following the shallow river.

She wouldn’t let Abel die. No matter what.

Five kilometers south of Atlasov Base she slowed to a run, and a hundred meters further on she spotted a break in the jungle at the water’s edge. It could be a game trail—she’d passed others like it already—but if Abel was right, the eko camp would be near.

The path was short and opened onto a clearing just beyond the thick stand of trees lining the river. The ekoes had set up three green tents around a small, neat table with six chairs. Basic needs only. Didn’t look like they’d spent much time there.

Hope of finding medical aid for Abel collapsed. She laid him out on the table, and he shifted on the damp metal, moaning despite the painkillers. 

Needing to be sure, she stuck her head into each of the tents—two simple shelters and a meal-prep station. Ekoes didn’t need to sleep the way humans did. Some still ate, and liked being dry, but there wasn’t an autodoc, let alone a med table. Another benefit of disposable bodies—no need to worry about patching them up in the field. The closest they had was a first-aid kit in the kitchen, and Abel was way past the first-aid stage. He needed a surgeon. 

A compact orbital transport sat on the other side of the clearing, its landing struts settled into the charred dirt. It was an old Assembly model, patched and scratched and worn. Mostly engine, with a squat cylindrical hull on top. It reached up almost to the canopy’s edge, where a camo net strung between the trees covered the ship’s shiny nose from above. Red script letters ran up the side, but Cass didn’t know the language.

Her suit translated it: Velocity's Shadow.

If the ship didn’t have medical equipment on board, she didn’t know what she’d do. And by the look of it, she was already expecting disappointment. This was the only way off the planet for them, and in his condition, Abel likely wouldn’t survive a launch, let alone a hard burn—

Her stomach lurched, and the specter of losing her brother solidified in her thoughts. She fought off the creeping dread. She couldn’t fail. She refused. That’s all there was to it.

If the ship didn’t have an autodoc, she’d—well, she’d figure something out.

The ship was powered down. Its hull seemed to absorb the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees. The gantry was stowed, and the hatch sealed. She stood under it for a moment, listening for sounds of her team approaching, and when she didn’t hear anything but the hum of the jungle, she flew herself up and hovered next to the hatch.

It was closed tight, and unlike Collective ships, there didn’t seem to be an external mechanism for cranking it open. She could always force her way in, but that would render the ship less than ideal as a means of space travel.

She reached out and felt along the edges of the hatch, wondering if she could pry it open without causing too much damage, when a white dot stretched out on the hull next to the door and spread into a set of concentric circles.

“Howdy,” a female voice asked in jiti, her accent all weird and twangy. “What can I do ya for?”

Cass’s training kicked in, overriding the surprise of the ship speaking to her. She raised her gun arm and flew back, ready to fire, but not sure who or what she should be aiming at. The eye-like light just blinked at her, as if waiting for a response.

“Whoever’s inside,” Cass said through her external speaker. “In the name of the Supreme Sovereign, I order you to surrender.”

“Ain’t no one here but us ships, darlin',” the voice replied, pleasant as anything.

Cass took a breath. Then another. Ekoes couldn’t be trusted, and who knew what she was really talking to, but she’d heard the stories. Wild tales about some of the ships the ekoes used.

The ones who thought they were people.

“You’re a construct,” Cass said.

Ekoes were bad enough, but at least they’d started out as human. Constructs were completely artificial. Machine code grown and pruned into a parody of consciousness. They flew Assembly ships and cooked Assembly meals and solved Assembly quantum equations.

They were dangerous.

“Call me ‘Vel,’” it said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The thing thought it had a name. A shiver of unease ran through her.

“I’ve heard stories about things like you,” Cass said.

“You’re Strazhi mira, right?” it asked.

Cass hesitated, not sure what to expect. “I am.” 

“I’ve heard stories about things like you,” Vel said, its tone tilting darker. Then it softened again. “I see you have wounded.”

“Do you have medical functions on board?”

“He does not look good.”

“I asked you a question.”

“Is he someone close to you?” it persisted. “Must be, otherwise why would you have dragged him out here? He’s local militia, isn’t he? I saw him with his team when he passed through earlier. And now here you are, carrying him, wounded, without your team. Though I suspect they’ll be along. Y'all had a falling out?” Cass hated that the machine seemed to know exactly what was going on. Before she could answer, the machine spoke again. “Did you kill my friends?” it asked.

Cass twigged on the word, friends. How perverse. A machine with friends.

“Not today,“ Cass replied. “But I have before.”

“Did he?” the ship asked.

Cass didn’t answer, and the ship was quiet long enough Cass noticed the silence. She lowered herself to the ground. The white circle disappeared from the hull, then winked on again on a display panel on the landing strut next to her.

“You know, it’s almost sad,” it said.

Cass didn’t want to engage but couldn’t help herself. “What is?”

“You.”

Cass clenched her jaw. The thing was toying with her.

“Do you have medical functions on board?” Cass asked again. If it wouldn’t answer, she’d find out for herself. Rip it open with her hands and deal with getting off the planet later.

“What is it that you are so scared of?” it asked, ignoring her in return.

The ship was trying to manipulate her into giving something up, but she wouldn’t fall for it. She wouldn’t let it get in her head.

“I’m not scared,” Cass said, keeping her voice a measured calm.

“Could have fooled me,” it pressed. “That armor doesn’t exactly scream ‘I feel safe and secure in my surroundings,’ does it? I think you’re terrified. You all are. I can see it, plain as day. And why shouldn’t you be, right? What with the—" she put on a silly voice: "—evils of the Assembly threatening to invade at any moment.”

Cass blanched at the idea the ship was mocking her but refused to show it.

 “Exactly. You did invade. That’s why I'm here. We’re not infiltrating your territory and snatching your people up.”

“Not today,” it said. “But which of us, only moments ago, executed a bunch of unarmed people?” It managed to keep a superior tone out of its voice, but only just.

That hadn't been Cass. Abel exterminated those ekoes. Had she got there first, protocol required prisoners be taken intact. But so what if these particular ekoes had been unarmed? That wasn’t the usual case.

And besides, they weren’t even really people—

What was she doing, wasting her time arguing with this machine? She raised her arm, the triple-barreled weapon pointed at the ship’s engines. “Last chance. Medical facilities. Yes, or no?“

“Counteroffer. First, tell me why you’re not scared.”

Cass nearly fired. But if this ship was her only option, destroying it out of spite wouldn’t help. She took a breath and clenched her jaw around her frustration. “Because I know what I’m fighting for,” she said.

“Which is?” the ship asked, its artificial voice spiking to curious.

“Survival,” Cass said. “To protect the future of humanity, at all costs. What could be more important than that?”

“Protect it? From ekoes and constructs and bears, oh my?”

Cass started at the thing’s sudden sing-song tone but dismissed it. Who could begin to understand why a construct did anything?

“From anything that would seek to destroy or replace us,” Cass said, solid in the truth of her upbringing.

“Huh,” the ship said after a moment. “Well, there you go then. Can’t argue with a doctrine of complete and utter dehumanization, can I?” It made a noise like it was clearing its throat, which was horrible and off-putting, given Cass knew it was a fabrication of a human gesture. “As it happens, no, I don’t have a med-table. No medical functions of any kind. Sorry. Anyway, nice to meet you and all, Strazh, but I imagine your team will be along shortly, and I really should be going.”

Gravity seemed to intensify. Cass' limbs grew heavy. Her stomach filled with molten lead.

That was it. There was no Plan-B.

Abel was dead. The only question now was, what would happen to her?

The engines whined, spinning up, and snapped her back to focus. She glanced at Abel’s limp body on the table. He wasn’t dead yet, and this ship was still her best way forward.

“You’re not leaving,” she said, stalling while she scrambled for a plan. “Why’d you even wait here so long? The militia came through hours ago. You must have suspected your friends ran into trouble. Why didn’t you bug out already?”

“There were eight refugees scheduled for extraction today, and I only received three before I lost contact with the team. I wanted to make sure no one else was coming back. It’s my job to get everyone out of here, and that’s what I intended to do. But I've waited long enough, and now that you’re here, well, I’m thinking it’s time I made myself scarce.”

It had stayed out of concern and a sense of duty? It was almost noble, but the nobility came in the choice. This thing was just following its programming.

And you’re not? A stray thought wondered by.

She felt her throat catch. Her head was jumbled with exhaustion and worry, but that kind of soft thinking led to ruin.

“And those defects you extracted, you have their—” she nearly tripped over the word, “souls—stored in your systems?”

“Souls. Psychorithms. Personalities. People. Whatever you want to call them, I've got them, safe and sound. I’ve also got my team’s backup memory files from this morning. I’m currently responsible for about a thousand total years of memory and experience. I intend to get them back to the flotilla.”

Cass saw it differently. She saw enemies that, if allowed to escape, would turn right around and invade Collective space again. She couldn’t let them leave.

But why not? That voice asked. You’re not Strazhi anymore.

Cass tried to ignore it. “What makes you think I’ll let you?” she said, hearing the uncertainty in her voice.

“I see your point,” it replied. “But I can’t help but suspect you might want off this planet as much as I do. Your person over there—is it your brother? Either way, he won’t see orbit.” Cass still didn’t respond. “In which case, I have a suggestion.”

Sour hope spiked in Cass’ chest, and even as she asked the question, she knew she wouldn’t like the answer. “What 'suggestion?'”

“You ain't gonna like it…” Its voice rose like a shrug.

Cass paused, not wanting to accept the implication. It was a machine, talking in riddles—but then she allowed herself, for just a second, to consider what the ship was offering. The mere thought of that desperate solution popped in her head like an aneurysm. Pain rang behind her eyes. Her vision went spotty.

The thing wanted to extract her brother. To save him straight into a memory bank.

“No,” Cass said, the anger seething in her chest. “Never. How dare you even suggest—"  

“Suit yourself, hun,” it said over her impotent fury. “Sorry I can’t help otherwise. I will just say, if he’s at all important to you, you might want to go say your goodbyes while you can. It doesn’t look like he'll be with us long.”

Cass spun to look at her brother. He was splayed out on his back, limbs dangling over the sides of the table.

“Well, I better get started on my launch,” the ship announced. “If you’re thinking of stopping me, could we skip straight to it? Nothing worse than a last-minute disappointment, am I right?” It paused, and its voice lowered like it was leaning closer. “But how about this—if you’d be so kind as to not to cripple me on the ground here, I’ll take you with me.” It continued before Cass could object. “I know, you don’t trust me and I’m the enemy and all that, but I’m not hunting through the jungle after you either. I’ll keep you safe. As safe as I can make it. There's a skip-gate opening shortly, and I can take you to the Wandering Lotus flotilla. They're peaceful. Welcome anyone who wants to join." Its voice rose back to chipper. “The offer’s there if you’re interested. Either way, I’ll let you know before I fire the engines. Fair enough? So I don’t cook you in your shell?”

Cass didn’t know what to say. The ship was her only chance of escape, but if she couldn’t save Abel, wasn’t it better to surrender and suffer judgement?

She stood for a long moment, just staring out at the long green grass rippling in the clearing. For the first time in years, her future was a blur. She didn’t know what came next.

Then Abel groaned and broke the tension, and she strode across the clearing toward him. His face was pallid. Halfway to a corpse.

What was she supposed to do?

“Just remember what you’re fighting for,” Vel called out a moment later. “Survival, wasn’t it?”