My pulse was pounding so hard I could feel it at my temples, but I kept moving. According to the topo, my dad’s body was less than a dozen meters away—somewhere in that maze of power units. I zoomed the display on my AuraView and oriented myself. Then I wound my way into the machinery, towards what looked to be a cluster of energy couplers. That was where the map said to go.
The dust here was disturbed as well and I could make out one pair of bootprints—my dad’s bootprints.
Blaster out, I stepped forward. There was something on the ground. A tool of some sort. As I moved closer I saw that it was an eight-inch judder knife. I had a newer model on my belt.
I peered around a capacitor pylon as tall as I was and saw some sort of transformer well. It was a five-meter by five-meter square pit that went down a half dozen meters. Down in the center was a cubical structure with reinforced plates. It had a sealed hatch sized for a Yueldian. The structure reminded me of a maintenance closet of some sort.
As far as I could tell, the prints led down there. I directed the beam of my hand-lamp down towards the bottom of the pit, but didn’t see anything. So I decided to climb down and try the hatch. It was locked, but the donokkal worked like a charm.
I took a deep breath and grasped the handle. The metal groaned as I eased the hatch open.
Then I saw it.
There, on a makeshift cot beside an energy coupler, rested a man’s body, his hands arranged on his chest.
He was wearing a Welkin armored exosuit. And the suit was wired to the coupler. The status display was faintly illuminated and it appeared to be working just fine.
Beside him was an equipment bag marked with Beck Salvage’s logo. Set on top of the bag was an old Pacer radiant blaster.
Carefully I kneeled down and played the lamp across the man’s visor and saw his face.
It was my face.
I had found my father.
And, judging by the suit’s bio monitor display, he was alive.
If there was one thing I remembered from my company-mandated SAR training over the years, it was that you couldn’t instantly revive someone from a state of deep metabolic hibernation. There was no way to flip a switch on my father’s suit and have him spring awake. It just didn’t work that way.
I stood over my dad and pondered the options.
First I would have to figure out a way to disconnect the jury-rigged power hookup. Then I would need to get him back to the ship. The MedBed would certainly have programs to properly revive him, but the trick would be getting my dad back to the ship without injury.
It was just so strange. I couldn’t believe that I was actually here with him. Looking down at him, I wondered what had happened. He was stretched out there on the cot so peacefully. But why? It didn’t make sense. If my father was alive, why did Yates leave him? And—equally baffling—why did my dad hole up here and put himself into hibernation? Why didn’t he escape into another part of Bandala? Surely, there were some sort of living facilities for the beings who tended the fortress.
A thought occurred to me. What if it was too dangerous to move around? What if my dad knew he couldn’t get to safety? He didn’t have any way to shut down the security grid, after all.
The horror of the situation finally dawned on me. My dad knew that he was trapped on this alien fortress—with no food, water, or life support. He knew he’d be hunted by hundreds—if not thousands—of security bots. Not just the guardian bots we’d tangled with, but also scrubbers, arthrodes, and Dynark knows what else. He knew there was no way he’d be able to survive, so he put himself to sleep—hoping that someone in the future might find him.
It was a terrifying gamble, but it had paid off.
Now I just had to get both of us to safety—back to the ship. And to do that, I needed the sled. I also needed Ana-Zhi Agrada’s help.
But I was worried.
What if Yates tried to pull something? If he had left my dad to die on purpose—it was the same as murder. And murderers tend not to like to be exposed for what they did.
But maybe if I got everything prepped first, I could risk calling in the rest of the incursion team.
I kneeled down to examine the power hookup from his suit to the coupler. There was a standard LB plug on the suit. The cable ran towards the bottom of the coupler. I could see where a narrow panel on the unit had been pried off to expose a bridge rectifier.
That was weird.
It looked like the cable wasn’t connected to anything.
Its end was just bunched up and wedged loosely against the rectifier. That didn’t make any sense.
Thinking that I must be missing something, I examined the cable again—and then checked my dad’s suit for any other cables.
Nada.
His suit must be running on its own power. There was no other explanation for it.
I tried to remember the stats on a Welkin suit. I seemed to remember that it had a five-year operating life, but this one had lasted at least seven.
That was incredible.
My thoughts were interrupted by a strange sound echoing from somewhere up above. I climbed out of the pit and moved out of the maze to get a better sense of the noise. It sounded like a clicking or clattering noise—metal on metal—combined with a faint whirring sound. Definitely mechanical—
Holy shit—bots!
Pouring in through the archway were six multi-armed attack bots. I recognized them as a type of arthrode—each
