‘I’m ready to shoot now. Follow me as soon as I’m through the second door.’
The Demarchist weapon discharged, lighting up the entire chamber in an eyeblink of murky detail. There was another discharge, then a third.
‘Martinez,’ I said. ‘Speak to me.’
After too long a delay, he came through. ‘I’m still here. Through the first door. Weapon’s cycling…’
More robots were swarming above us, tentacles lashing like whips. I wondered how long it would take before signals reached Nightingale’s sentience engine and the ship realised that it was dealing with more than just a local malfunction.
‘Why doesn’t he shoot?’ Sollis asked, squeezing off one controlled slug after another.
‘Sporting weapon. Three shots, recharge cycle, three shots,’ Norbert said, by way of explanation. ‘No rapid- fire mode. But work good underwater.’
‘We could use those next three shots,’ I said.
Martinez buzzed in my ear. ‘Ready. I will discharge until the weapon is dry. I suggest you start swimming now.’
I looked at Nicolosi’s drifting form, which was still as inert as when he had emerged from the steam cloud caused by his own weapon. ‘I think he’s dead,’ I said softly, ‘but we should still—’
‘No,’ Norbert said, almost angrily. ‘Leave him.’
‘Maybe he’s just unconscious.’
Martinez fired three times; three brief, bright strobe flashes. ‘Through!’ I heard him call, but there was something wrong with his voice. I knew then that he’d been hurt as well, although I couldn’t guess how badly.
Norbert and Sollis fired two last shots at the robots that were still approaching, then kicked past me in the direction of the airlock. I looked at Nicolosi’s drifting form, knowing that I’d never be able to live with myself if I didn’t try to get him out of there. I clipped my gun back to my belt and started swimming for him.
‘No!’ Norbert shouted again, when he’d seen my intentions. ‘Leave him! Too late!’
I reached Nicolosi and locked my right arm around his neck, pulling his head against my chest. I kicked for all I was worth, trying to pull myself forward with my free arm. I still couldn’t tell if Nicolosi was dead or alive.
‘Leave him, Scarrow! Too late!’
‘I can’t leave him!’ I shouted back, my voice ragged.
Three robots were bearing down on me and my cargo, their tentacles groping ahead of them. I squinted against the glare from their lights and tried to focus on getting the two of us to safety. Every kick of my legs, every awkward swing of my arm, seemed to tap the last drop of energy in my muscles. Finally I had nothing more to give.
I loosened my arm. His body corkscrewed slowly around, and through his visor I saw his face: pale, sweat- beaded, locked into a rictus of fear, but not dead, nor even unconscious. His eyes were wide open. He knew exactly what was going to happen when I let him go.
I had no choice.
A strong arm hooked itself under my helmet and began to tug me out of harm’s way. I watched as Nicolosi drifted towards the robots, and then closed my eyes as they wrapped their tentacles around his body and started probing him for points of weakness, like children trying to tear the wrapping from a present.
Norbert’s voice boomed through the water. ‘He’s dead.’
‘He was alive. I saw it.’
‘He’s dead. End of story.’
I pulled myself through a curtain of trembling pink water. Air pressure in the corridor contained the amniotic fluid, even though Martinez had blown a man-sized hole in each airlock door. Ruptured metal folded back in jagged black petals. Ahead, caught in a moving pool of light from their helmet lamps, Sollis and Martinez made awkward, crabwise progress away from the ruined door. Sollis was supporting Martinez, doing most of the work for him. Even in zero gravity, it took effort to haul another body.
‘Help her,’ Norbert said faintly, shaking his weapon to loosen the last of the pink bubbles from its metal outer casing. Without waiting for a reaction from me, he turned and started shooting back into the water, dealing with the remaining robots.
I caught up with Sollis and took some of her burden. All along the corridor, panels were flashing bright red, synchronised with the banshee wail of an emergency siren. About once every ten metres, the ship’s persona spoke from the wall, multiple voices blurring into an agitated chorus. ‘Attention. Attention,’ the faces said. ‘This is the Voice of
‘What’s up with Martinez?’
‘Took some shrapnel when he put a hole in that door.’ She indicated a severe dent in his chest armour, to the left of the sternum. ‘Didn’t puncture the suit, but I’m pretty sure it did some damage. Broken rib, maybe even a collapsed lung. He was talking for a while back there, but he’s out cold now.’
‘Without Martinez, we don’t have a mission.’
‘I didn’t say he was dead. His suit still looks as if it’s ticking over. Maybe we could leave him here, collect him on the way back.’
‘With all those robots crawling about the place? How long do you think they’d leave him alone?’
I looked back, checking on Norbert. He was firing less frequently now, dealing with the last few stragglers still intent on investigating the damage. Finally he stopped, loaded a fresh clip into his slug-gun, and then after waiting for ten or twenty seconds turned from the wall of water. He began to make his way towards us.
‘Maybe there aren’t going to be any more robots.’
‘There will,’ Norbert said, joining us. ‘Many more. Nowhere safe, now. Ship on full alert. Nightingale coming alive.’
‘Maybe we should scrub,’ I said. ‘We’ve lost Nicolosi… Martinez is incapacitated… we’re no longer at anything like necessary strength to take down Jax.’
‘We still take Jax,’ Norbert said. ‘Came for him, leave with him.’
‘What about Martinez?’
He looked at the injured man, his face set like a granite carving. ‘He stay,’ he said.
‘But you already said that the robots—’
‘No other choice. He stay.’ And then Norbert brought himself closer to Martinez and tucked a thick finger under the chin of the old man’s helmet, tilting the faceplate up. ‘Wake!’ he bellowed.
When there was no response, Norbert reached behind Martinez’s chest armour and found the release buckles. He passed the dented plate to me, then slid down the access panel on the front of Martinez’s tabard pack, itself dented and cracked from the shrapnel impact. He scooped out a fistful of pink water, flinging the bubble away from us, then started making manual adjustments to the suit’s life-support settings. Biomedical data patterns shifted, accompanied by warning flashes in red.
‘What are you doing?’ I breathed. When he didn’t appear to hear me, I shouted the question again.
‘He need stay awake. This help.’
Martinez coughed red sputum onto the inside of his faceplate. He gulped in hard, then made rapid eye contact with the three of us. Norbert pushed the loaded slug-gun into Martinez’s hand, then slipped a fresh ammo clip onto the old man’s belt. He pointed down the corridor, to the blasted door, then indicated the direction we’d all be heading when we abandoned Martinez.
‘We come back,’ he said. ‘You stay alive.’
Sollis’s teeth flashed behind her faceplate. ‘This isn’t right. We should be carrying him… anything other than just leaving him here.’
‘Tell them,’ Martinez wheezed.
‘No,’ Norbert said.
‘Tell them, you fool! They’ll never trust you unless you tell them.’
‘Tell them what?’ I asked.
Norbert looked at me with heavy-lidded eyes. ‘The old man… not Martinez. His name… Quinlan.’
‘Then who the fuck is Martinez?’ Sollis asked.
