“You are correct about the status of my data banks, however, I must confirm your identity and authorization to enter this station. I may not have access to current information, but if you came here to reassert control over this station, you would at least have the last access codes entered into the core system. Move forward to the lighted workstation, and enter the primary sequence to confirm your clearance to be here.”

  It was a reasonable request by the AI, and it suggested the machine they were dealing with was highly sophisticated, able to make decisions beyond a narrow flowchart. Of course, one of those decisions could very easily be to decide they were invaders or spies, and to try to kill them all. Andi found herself looking around the room, her eyes scanning for possible cover.

  There wasn’t much.

  “I have current access codes. I am able to enter those, but it is doubtful they will match your data banks.”

  “It is not logical that duly authorized imperial personnel would have entered this station without access codes or some other credentials. Remain where you are.”

  “I order you to permit us access and to provide the…”

  “Remain where you are.”

  Andi could hear sounds in the distance, and a few seconds later, a hatch opened, and two small shapes came out. They were about a meter tall, and there was a small sphere mounted on a cylinder over the stout bottom section. There were two thin tubes protruding from the top of the middle section.

  Andi knew what they were the instant she saw them. Autocannons.

  “You will be taken to the holding area and confined until I am able to verify your identity.” No mention of what would happen if the AI couldn’t confirm their identity which, of course, Andi knew it couldn’t.

  That’s more tactful than I’d expect from an AI. Makes sense, too. Why tell us we’ll be killed, or that we’ll die in a cell somewhere?

  It would only encourage resistance.

  You’re going to get resistance anyway, you…

  Her thought was stopped abruptly. Some kind of klaxon went off, fairly distant, sounding very much like an alarm system that was only partly functional.

  “Alert. Unauthorized ships approaching.”

  That can’t be good…

  Andi almost knew what the AI’s next words were going to be, and she was already on the move when they came.

  “The approaching vessels have opened fire.”

  The words hit like a hammer. Who the hell was out there, and why would they come so far just to try to blast the thing?

  And, what kind of ship could have weapons powerful enough to damage something this big…

  Cold realization hit Andi.

  “Nightrunner, Cap…they’re firing at Nightrunner.”

  Her words preceded his own realization by perhaps a second. Andi was looking right at him when she saw it on his face.

  “We need to get back to the ship…now!” He turned and took two steps toward the door they’d entered through.

  “Hold!” The AI’s voice had changed, the relentlessly calm tone replaced by a clearly threatening one.

  “We have to return to our ship.” Lorillard took another step, the only one he managed before the AI’s voice boomed out like a thunderclap.

  “This is your final warning. Remain in place. I have calculated an unacceptable probability that you are some kind advanced guard or infiltration unit connected to the attacking strike force. As per standard procedure, this station is on Priority One Alert. You will be neutralized so you cannot take action to aide the attacking ships. If you resist, you will be terminated at once, without further warning.”

  Andi stood where she was, as did all the others. The bots moved, taking position where they had a line of fire at the entire landing party. Everything on the station was old, Andi knew, and there was a good chance some of it was no longer fully functional.

  But that wasn’t a bet she wanted to take, at least not on those autocannons.

  * * *

  “Break radio silence…advise Embuscade to close with the station and dock.” Gavereaux sat in the middle of Clipper’s small bridge, his eyes fixed on the scanner display’s image of the station. He’d read the reports, and he knew more or less what to expect, but he realized none of that had truly prepared him for the reality. The thing was huge, and perhaps more importantly, it was in decent shape. There was damage, of course, and unrepaired wear—he could see that plainly enough. But it was by far the best-preserved artifact he had ever seen.

  “Embuscade acknowledges.”

  “Bring us in along a course to Nightrunner’s docking point. Take position two thousand kilometers from their position. Lasers at full power.” Clipper didn’t have all that impressive of a weapons suite, not by the standards of warships, at least. But then, neither did Captain Lorillard’s vessel. And, coming in against a docked ship, Clipper would have a huge advantage if it came to fighting.

  When it came to fighting.

  Gavereaux wasn’t ready to destroy the prospecting ship, not yet. He had no idea what was going on in the station, how many of Lorillard’s people were in their ship, and how many had moved out into the imperial artifact. Ideally, he’d get Nightrunner in his sights, and wait until the Foudre Rouge landed and gave him a report from inside the station.

  But if Lorillard’s people tried to pull something…

  “I want the lasers manned and ready to fire at the first signs Nightrunner is powering up to break away from the station.”

  He would let Lorillard’s people live, a little longer. They may yet serve a valid purpose, root out some internal defenses that would cost him some of his own people. But he wasn’t about to let them turn the whole thing into something approaching a fair fight. If he had to, he’d kill them all immediately.

  They were all as good as dead anyway. He might use them a bit longer, but there was no way he could let any of them escape. He hadn’t decided if he’d take prisoners if any of them surrendered, but letting them get back to Dannith—or anywhere else—was out of the question.

  Lorillard’s people were probably running around, grabbing trinkets, electronics and even data dumps if they were able to get some. That would be enough to make them rich. Crazy rich. But the station offered far more than that. It offered the entire Rim.

  Artificial intelligence systems. Vast reactors and power generation. Weapons. Even if, as it appeared, none of the station’s guns were operative, they were still there, manna for the scientists and engineers the Presidium would send to study them. To copy them.

  Possession of the station—and keeping its location secret—was no less than a chance to alter the fundamental balance of power on the Rim, to give the Union irresistible dominance. The Union had fought three wars with its neighbor, and there was little question another was coming. It might be five years off, even ten—the fleet wasn’t ready yet—but it would come. If the ships that fought that war were equipped with imperial-grade weapons, it would be a massacre. The conflict wouldn’t be fought to gain frontier systems. The heart of the Confederation would be vulnerable. Foudre Rouge could march on the Senate Compound itself.

  Gavereaux knew, if he was the one who discovered the ancient tech that could win that war, the rewards would be immense. Power, wealth, privilege. Perhaps even advancement that put him on a road to a seat on the Presidium someday.

  He wasn’t going to let it slip through his fingers, and certainly not by allowing any of Lorillard’s pack of pirates to elude his grasp. They all had to die in this system, or they had to go back to the Union and a Sector Nine cell somewhere.

  Gavereaux didn’t care which it was, though he suspected a quick death in the Osiron system would be the most merciful. He didn’t know whether Nightrunner’s crew knew anything else of value, save whatever they’d learned about the station, but he was well aware of Sector Nine’s methods of interrogation, and the thoroughness of its inquisitors.

  Yes, perhaps I will do them a favor killing them here. I owe them that much for clearing away the defenses, and opening the door for me.

  Opening the door to so much…

  Chapter Eighteen

  Free Trader Nightrunner

  Docked at Imperial Station

  Orbiting Zensoria, Osiron VI

  Year 301 AC

  “Doc, get up here…I need some help.” Tyrell was sitting in the command chair on Nightrunner’s bridge—the captain’s chair—feeling very out of his depth. He’d stayed behind because the captain had asked him to. He might have read something in that once, but he’d come to know the captain’s ways long before. Someone had to stay, and it was Tyrell’s turn, more or less.

  Beyond that, while Tyrell could hold his own in a fight, his real skills were in communication and scanning devices. That made him, aside from the captain, the logical choice to mind the ship, and wait for the others to return…and do his best to keep an eye on things in the system. Not that he’d expected to find anything so far out in the Badlands.

  At least until a few seconds before.

  “On the way.” “Doc” Rand wasn’t a real doctor, he was just the closest thing Nightrunner had to one. He’d been a medical technician of some kind, and he’d completed some percentage of the course requirements for a medical certification. The specifics of that percentage had varied, depending on the details of the telling, and how much drinking was involved.

  The hatch slid open, and Rand raced onto the bridge. “What’s up?” He sounded a little edgy, but then he saw the display, and his visible stress level increased well beyond “a little.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “That’s why you’re here. They’re coming in right at us, and I need some help with the controls.”

  “I don’t know how to fly this thing? I patch up your wounds, I don’t pilot Nightrunner.”

  “I don’t pilot Nightrunner either, but we’re going to have to do something. I can’t reach the landing party. Whatever this station is made of, it blocks scanning and comm beams cold. They weren’t twenty meters in when he lost contact.”

  “So, what do we do? Who are they?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Well, what kind of ship does it look like? Another prospector?”

  Tyrell shook his head. “My God, you really don’t know how to read any of this, do you? There are two ships, not one, and they’re both heading for the station…or for us, it’s hard to tell.”

  “Two ships? It could still be a prospecting run. If anyone else had data on this…thing…well, there’s probably plenty here to go around.”

  That was a reassuring thought, the idea of a few more prospectors come to join them, and even help with the gathering of tech. The only problem was, Badlands salvage teams had a bad history of not working together. Sharing wasn’t a big part of the culture, and no matter how much loot there was for the taking, crews tended to get territorial. Tyrell knew that for a number of reasons, not the least of which was his own angry thought that Nightrunner had gotten there first.

  Whoever this was, it was two ships to one, and maybe worse. Tyrell didn’t see a way to prevent them from getting a bead on Nightrunner, or just blasting the ship, before he could get the engines ready to break away.

  Assuming he could manage that at all.

  That all ignored the fact that such an action meant leaving the others on the station. He wasn’t sure if he could execute the breakaway, but he was even less confident he could manage to pull off a docking run. If he pulled Nightrunner from its mooring, he might never be able to get the others back aboard.

  And if he didn’t break away, they’d be sitting ducks.

  “I need you over there.” Tyrell gestured toward the number two station. Andi’s station, he thought. The seat had never been designated as belonging to any of the crew, but they’d all become used to Andi flying the ship along with the captain in recent months.

  Doc looked like he might say something, but after a couple seconds, he just turned and sat down in the chair.

  “We need to bring the reactor level up high enough to give us some thrust potential. But it’s pretty cold now, and we can’t raise it too quickly.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I have no idea what I’m doing over here.”

  “Well, if you don’t want to get roasted while you’re sitting over there, start figuring it out.”

  Tyrell was watching the scanner, and even as he was trying to get the nav systems online, he began to realize it was too late. He might break away, just in time, but Nightrunner would never get away—or get her own weapons charged up—in time.

  “Slow down on that reactor powerup.” Tyrell was shaking his head and exhaling as what little hope he’d had drained away. “We don’t have time to break free, not before those bastards can fire at us.” His mind was still racing, despite the cold realization, trying to come up with something—anything—to do.

  The best thing he could think of was to stay where they were, for the moment, at least. Maybe the approaching ships would hold their fire, not wanting to damage the station or trigger some kind of defensive response. That would buy a little time, at least.

  But what the hell are you going to do with more time, trapped under their guns, without the Cap and the others?

  * * *

  “Let us return to our vessel. We are an imperial crew, and our ship is armed. Your defense grid is down. We can intercept those…”

  “Negative. The approaching vessels are too close. There is insufficient time, and you cannot be allowed to leave until your identification is confirmed.” The AI was stubborn, and all of Lorillard’s efforts to extricate them from the room had been rebuffed.

  Andi stood where she was, her head moving around, scanning the room. It was a control center of some kind, almost certainly, but she was willing to bet it wasn’t the main one for the entire station. The AI speaking to them, and holding them as prisoners, was very likely located elsewhere in the station.

  She had no idea what condition the station’s comm lines were in, but the fact that the defense network—which he she imagined had once been vast and powerful—had been reduced to a pair of laser buoys suggested that, as much of the construct that remained intact, there was, nevertheless, considerable breakdown and wear. Not to mention the fact that the AI seemed unaware that the two lasers that had remained had been destroyed by Nightrunner. Clearly, there were huge gaps in the various systems.

  The AI was clearly incredibly sophisticated, and not likely to be outsmarted or convinced to let them go…but its ability to hold them where they were was dependent, at that moment, almost entirely on maintaining communications with the two bots.

  At least part of that ability was wireless—the bots were freestanding, not connected in any physical way. Andi didn’t like the idea of guessing on the capabilities of imperial systems, but enough interference just might cut off the AI’s connection to the bots. If only for a short time.

  Her eyes caught the scanner, the large one Gregor had been carrying. The giant had set it down about a meter from where he stood. Andi had a clear line of sight to it.

  A clear line of fire.

  She didn’t know if she could get a shot off before the bots took her out. Even if she managed it, she didn’t know if the thing would overload the way she hoped. If she was even able to hit it.

  She had no idea at all what kind of internal programming the bots had. Would they stand where they were, if they lost contact with the main AI, seeking to reconnect for instructions?

  Or would they open fire and kill everyone in the room?

  Her head ached. She didn’t know what to do. If she took action, if she made that desperate gamble, she might get herself killed…get all her friends killed. But if she didn’t…

  The AI would never release them, and eventually, it would realize they weren’t imperials at all. What would it do then? And what ships were approaching? Who was out there, and what would they do? To Nightrunner? To her friends?

  Even to the station.

  She could feel her hand shaking, and she felt nauseous. She understood her body’s own signals. She’d decided to act.

  She tried to think of some way to let her comrades, or at least the captain, know what she was doing, but there was nothing. The AI could hear everything she said, and it was monitoring her from multiple angles, she was sure. At best, she’d cause confusion. At worst, she’d warn the AI, or trigger some kind of unpleasant response.

  She hesitated a few seconds, feeling an almost irresistible urge to procrastinate, to wait and see if the captain had a plan, if any other opportunity was going to develop.

  But she knew there was nothing. Her plan was their only chance.

  Lorillard had tried to persuade the AI, and there had been no movement at all, no change in the computer’s position.

  Do it.

  She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, trying to push back the desire to leave saving them to one of the others, to shy away from the terrible responsibility. She’d have one chance. One. If she was lucky. She couldn’t miss. She had to hit the thing dead center, and hope for the best.

  Do it now.

  She acted, startling herself with the suddenness of it all, as some part of her deep inside overruled the fear, the hesitation.

  Her hand had been close to her pistol, and now it was on the weapon, fingers clasping as she pulled it from the holster. She was quick, the fastest gun on Nightrunner, but her adversary was a machine. She had surprise, perhaps, but she knew she didn’t have time.

  Aim, aim, aim…her mind pounded the thought into her. But she ignored it, and just fired.

  There hadn’t been time to obsess, to line up the weapon. She’d had to rely on her gut, on the instinct that had taken her from the streets of the Gut to where she was now. She was consciously terrified, but some part of her had held firm, and she felt the kick from the weapon as it fired a second time, and then a third.

  Even if the bots blast me now, maybe the others will get out.