Silence kicked open the door to his left, darted into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He didn’t really think the door was going to stop something that could crash through walls, but hopefully it would buy him a little time while he worked on what the hell to do next. A metal fist punched a hole in the door. Silence watched, fascinated, as an arm followed the hand through the hole, and then the Guardian pulled it back sharply, yanking the door out of its frame. The Guardian stepped unhurriedly into the room, widening the doorway as it did so. Silence backed away, holding his shield up before him.
The corridor was plunged into darkness as Silence disappeared into the side room, taking the only lamp with him. Frost cursed dispassionately and switched to her infrared implants, only to discover the Guardians were shielded against displaying any heat signs. Frost immediately switched to ambient light and activated her force shield. The shield’s glow was more than enough to show her the Guardian advancing on her. Frost fired her gun, but the energy bolt glanced harmlessly off the machine’s force shield. Frost shrugged calmly, put her gun away, and drew a knife from inside her boot. It was viciously wide and almost a foot long, and its edges looked blurred and uncertain.
“Monofilament edge,” said Frost to Carrion. “Cut through anything. Have to be careful with it, though, or it’ll have your fingers off.”
“Those things were illegal in my day,” observed Carrion.
“They still are. But I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”
And then the Guardians were upon them, and there was no more time for talk. Frost threw herself forward, and the knife lashed out to cut a chunk off the Guardian’s hand. Its built-in disrupters all fired at once, but her force shield protected her. Frost brought the energy field across sideways, and its razor-sharp edge sliced clean through the Guardian’s other hand as it reached for her. The huge metal arms swept suddenly in, intending to grab the Investigator and crush her against the blades on its chest. Frost dropped to her knees and rolled to one side, and the great arms closed on nothing. Frost jumped back, scrambling quickly to regain her feet, and the Guardian went after her, reaching for her with its crippled hands.
Frost darted in and out, slashing at the Guardian with her knife, cutting and carving it, but unable to do any real damage. It was just too big, and her knife was too small. The machine’s computer-enhanced moves were inhumanly fast, and only her Investigator’s training enabled her to avoid it. And she knew she couldn’t maintain that kind of speed for long. She could turn and run. The Guardian didn’t look as if it were built for high-speed pursuit. But that would mean abandoning Carrion and the Captain, and her duty. Investigators didn’t run. She darted in under the Guardian’s reach, jammed her gun against its chest, and pressed the stud. Nothing happened. There hadn’t been enough time for the energy crystal to recharge. She scrambled up the Guardian, climbing it like a cat, carefully avoiding the blades on its chest, and dropped to the ground behind it. She spun round quickly, and stabbed the machine in the back before it could turn. It shuddered once, but that was all. The blade wasn’t long enough to reach the parts that mattered. She yanked the blade out, and a metal arm whirled round and sent her flying down the corridor. She’d got her force shield up in time, but the impact was still enough to knock the breathout of her. She got her feet under her and backed away as the Guardian advanced on her, implacable and unstoppable as death itself.
Carrion crouched down, and froze where he was when Silence disappeared with the lamp. In the dark, the Guardian could only track him by sound. Unless the damn thing had infrared too. And then Frost turned on her force shield, and Carrion’s long-neglected eye-enhancements kicked in, boosting the ambient light. Carrion straightened up as he saw the third Guardian advancing on him. He drew his power about him, crackling and sparkling on the air, and reached out to tear the machine apart. And his power dropped away and was gone in an instant. Carrion stood for a moment, staring blankly, and that was almost enough to get him killed. The Guardian raised its hand, and all the disrupters in the hand fired at once. Carrion threw himself to one side at the last moment, old combat reflexes coming to his rescue. The damn thing had psi inhibitors built into it. They worked on the opposite principle to his power lance, damping down psi energy instead of augmenting it. The Empire used them to keep espers in line. They reacted to build-ups in psionic energy and cut in automatically once it rose above a certain level. Carrion backed away from the Guardian, holding his useless power lance out before him.
The Guardian loomed over him, reaching for him with razored hands. Carrion reached inside himself and drew on his power. The psi inhibitors prevented him from doing anything dramatic, but it was surprising what you could do with even small amounts. He reached out with his mind, a whisper of psychokinesis almost too small to register, and slipped it deftly between the Guardian’s feet and the floor. All friction vanished in a moment as he concentrated, and the Guardian’s feet shot out from under it. It fell on its back with a deafening crash, and Carrion reached quickly out to do the same to the machine threatening Frost. It hit the floor hard, and Froststepped forward and drove her monofilament knife into its gleaming skull. The Guardian jerked and trembled, and lay twitching on its back on the floor. Frost pulled the knife out and calmly set about sawing the grinning head off.
The wall to Carrion’s left exploded, throwing shrapnel across the corridor, and Carrion had to put up his esper screen to protect himself. He couldn’t concentrate on that and the Guardian, and the machine rose quickly to its feet again. Silence clambered through the hole in the wall. A metal hand reached out after him, and Silence threw himself forward to avoid it. He scrambled away and was quickly on his feet again, standing beside Carrion and breathing hard. The Guardian before them fired a disrupter, and Silence blocked it with his force shield, holding it at an angle so that the beam glanced off and struck the Guardian that was climbing through the hole in the wall. It stopped the beam with a force shield, but was slowed for a moment. Silence grinned breathlessly.
“Same trick I used to make that thing provide me with an exit through the wall.”
“Very clever,” said Carrion. “Almost as clever as disappearing into another room and taking the only light with you.”
“Ah,” said Silence. “Sorry about that. It’s been a while since I did any hand-to-hand stuff. I’m rather out of practice.”
They jumped in different directions as Carrion’s Guardian fired again, and the vivid energy beam flashed past them down the corridor to blow a hole in the far wall. Silence’s Guardian crashed out into the corridor again, shaking off encumbering debris, and turned to face Frost. She hefted the severed metal head in her hand and threw it at the Guardian. The machine caught the head easily, put it down on the floor with surprising gentleness, and started toward the Investigator. She grinned at it unpleasantly, her knifeheld out before her. And then the headless machine on the floor behind her reached out with a partly severed hand and grabbed her firmly by the ankle.
Carrion raised his esp as high as he dared, focused his psychokinesis tightly, and punched a hole right through the chest of the Guardian before him. It shuddered under the impact, but did not fall. The outlaw retreated, Silence at his side.
“Is there any way of beating these things?” said Carrion.
“Not really, no,” said Silence. “I’m amazed we lasted this long. They’re supposed to be unstoppable. But then, that’s never bothered you before.”
And then the Guardian was upon them, and there was no more time for words.
Diana crouched down behind her force shield, trembling violently as three Guardians advanced on her. The two marines had already fired their disrupters, to no effect, and they too were reduced to hiding behind their force shields and looking frantically around for a way out. The Guardians strode unwaveringly through the alien-infested corridor, ignoring everything except their targets. Ripper pulled a grenade from his belt, primed it, and tossed it into the midst of the three machines. It
blew a second later, and the corridor filled with alien fragments and thick, choking smoke. Stasiak grabbed Diana’s wrist and hauled her after him as he and Ripper ran down a side corridor, away from the smoke and the three undamaged Guardians, already striding through the smoke after them.
The alien changes became stranger and more overpowering as they fled deeper into Level Two, but Diana was too busy coughing the smoke out of her lungs to pay much attention to her surroundings. Tears were streaming down her face, as much from shock as the smoke. She’d neverseen anything so deadly efficient as the Guardians. They scared her on some basic, primal level that left no room in her for anything but flight. The Guardians were everything about the Empire that had ever threatened or punished her—brute symbols of authority, relentless as justice or revenge. She could no more have raised a hand against them than she could have defied her own conditioning.
The marines’ pace slowed as they left the smoke behind them, but they could still hear the sounds of the Guardians’ implacable progress not far behind them. Stasiak produced a small capsule from somewhere and swallowed it dry, grimacing at the effort. He offered one to Ripper, who got his down more easily. Stasiak grinned at Diana, his eyes already bright and glassy.
“Just a little something, to give a fighting man an edge. You want one?” Diana shook her head. She didn’t trust battle drugs. Stasiak shrugged and pulled her on. “It’s your choice. But don’t slow us down, or I’ll have to leave you. Right, Rip?”
Ripper nodded brusquely, without looking round, and Diana fought to keep up with the marines as they made their way down a corridor distorted by strange alien growths. The hanging streamers of webbing grew steadily thicker, clinging stickily to the marines and the esper as they pushed through them. The corridor grew narrower, pressing in uncomfortably from all sides as the alien growths ran wild. It seemed to Diana that they’d left the Base behind and were running through a harsh new alien world. But the Guardians were still following. She could hear them. The changing alien nature of their surroundings didn’t seem to be slowing the machines at all. And then a side corridor ended in a great swollen mass of alien tissue, bringing the three humans to a halt. The marines cut at the spongy mass with their swords, but it simply absorbed their blows without effect. They turned and glared back down thecorridor. Stasiak swallowed another capsule. The sound of approaching metal footsteps came clearly on the quiet.
Ripper tapped Stasiak on the arm and gestured at the ceiling. Stasiak looked puzzled, but then his face cleared as Ripper hefted his gun. They aimed their disrupters at the ceiling, at the point where the Guardians would enter the side corridor. Diana stood behind them, her force shield humming loudly, and tried to control her trembling. And then the Guardians appeared at the end of the corridor, and Stasiak and Ripper fired at the ceiling above them.
The alien growths exploded and the ceiling blew apart. Fat sparks flew on the air as electrical systems fused and failed and half the floor above collapsed onto the Guardians, burying them under tons of rubble. The marines and the esper watched in silence as the wreckage slowly settled, and then Diana surprised herself with a loud whoop of glee. The marines laughed and whooped a few times themselves. They all turned off their force shields and hugged each other, giddy with relief. And then they fell silent as the wreckage shifted. Broken metal and ragged alien tissues stirred and fell back as a Guardian rose slowly from the debris. Its blue steel exterior was barely scratched.
The Guardian advanced unhurriedly on Silence and Carrion. It knew there was nowhere they could go. If they tried to run it would shoot them, and if they stood their ground and tried to hide behind their force shields, it would tear them apart. At the other end of the corridor the Guardian Frost had beheaded was clinging firmly to her ankle, while the third Guardian advanced on her. Silence looked desperately at Carrion.
“Do something! Use your lance!”
“If I try the same trick again, the psi inhibitors will stop me,” said Carrion calmly. “If I persist, they’ll burn my brain out.”
Silence backed slowly away from the Guardian, and Carrion moved back with him. The Guardian lifted its hands to cover them with its disrupters. Silence thought furiously. The damn things had to have a weakness somewhere. Everything had a weakness. Except the Guardians had been designed to be unstoppable. Inhumanly strong, computer-fast reflexes … computers. Silence seized on that thought. The Guardians were part of the Base’s Security systems, which meant they were run by the Security computers. …
“Odin! Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Captain. Audio contact remains firm.”
“Patch into the Base Security computers and shut them down! Shut down anything that even looks like it might be running a Guardian!”
“Of course, Captain. An excellent stratagem.” There was a slight pause, and then the AI’s voice returned. “I regret I am unable to comply, Captain. I am unable to find any computer system still functioning in Base Thirteen capable of running a Guardian. Only a few emergency systems are still functioning.”
“What?” Silence looked blankly at Carrion. “But if the computers aren’t running the Guardians … they must be running themselves. And that’s not possible. That’s not possible!”
“Are you going to tell them that, or shall I?” said Carrion.
“Dammit, do something, Carrion! That thing will kill both of us!”
“Yes,” said the outlaw quietly. “I think it will, Captain.”
At the other end of the corridor, Frost pried desperately at the steel fingers gripping her ankle. The other Guardian was almost on top of her, but she couldn’t break the hold. She snarled silently and cut savagely at the metal arm, slicingthrough its wrist, She threw herself clumsily to one side, dodging the reaching metal hands, and got her feet under her again. The severed hand was still gripping her ankle fiercely, despite the damage she’d done to it. Which meant she had no chance of outrunning her opponent, but then, she wasn’t the running kind. She slashed at the advancing Guardian with her monofilament knife, and the blade bounced harmlessly back from the machine’s force field. Frost shrugged, and darted back out of reach. It seemed the Guardians were capable of learning from experience. Actually, she was surprised she’d lasted this long. She cut the metal hand from her ankle with a few quick slashes of the knife, and then had to throw herself to one side as disrupter beams seared through the air where she’d been standing. She hit the floor rolling, and was quickly back on her feet and dodging more disrupter shots.
A thought kept nagging at her, even as she dodged and ducked. The Guardians were fast, but they weren’t anywhere near as fast as she’d expected them to be. As they were supposed to be. In fact, it was just possible that she was faster than they were. Which gave her an idea. The Guardians had force shields, but they were only using them to deflect disrupter beams. Apparently they didn’t see anything else as a big enough threat. Frost grinned unpleasantly, and pulled a concussion grenade from her bandolier. She ducked another disrupter blast, leapt past the oncoming Guardian, and jumped onto the back of the headless one as it groped blindly about for its prey. She primed the grenade, stuffed it into the open neck, and leapt away. There was a muffled explosion, and smoke poured from the cavity, but the Guardian didn’t go down. Frost stared at it incredulously. How much punishment could these things take?
Silence and Carrion backed away from the advancing Guardian until they came up against a wall and there was nowhere left to go. Carrion looked at Silence.
“I seem to have run out of options, Captain. If you have any last-minute master plan, I think this would be a good time to share it.”
“Sorry,” said Silence. “I was depending on you.”
Carrion managed something that was almost a smile. “You should have known better than that, John.”
As Frost backed away from the headless Guardian, she stumbled over its severed head. She glanced down automatically, and stopped as something caught her eye. Without slowing her cautious retrea
t, she snatched up the head and studied it more closely. The headless machine hesitated, and then stopped where it was. The other Guardian stopped too. Frost blinked, puzzled, and took a better look at the severed head. The light had gone out of its eyes, though it still wore its endless disturbing grin, but there was something about it. … She turned it over in her hands, still keeping a cautionary eye on the motionless Guardians, and then whistled soundlessly as she saw the interior of the head. A great many things suddenly became clear. Where there should have been nothing but silicon circuitry and crystalline matrices, there were also thick strands of living tissue. Alien tissue.
She looked down the corridor and saw that the third Guardian had stopped its advance on Silence and Carrion. She called out to them and tossed the head in their direction. It bumped and rolled across the uneven floor, and the Guardian made no move to intercept it. The head finally rolled to a halt, and Silence reached carefully down and picked it up. He raised an eyebrow at the alien tissue inside the head, and showed it to Carrion.
“Interesting,” said Carrion.
“Explains a lot, doesn’t it?” said Silence. “No wonder they didn’t need the Security computers to run them. The aliens invaded them too. The damn things are alive. …”
“And now that we know that, it changes a lot of things,” said Carrion. “There wasn’t much my esp could do against standard Guardians without triggering the psi inhibitors, but living tissue is much more responsive to esper attack; all it needs is a little touch in the right place. …”