Connivance
Written by Steven Dutch & Chris Masterton
Copyright © 2024 by Chris Masterton & Steven Dutch
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
Elysium - C1099 S5 R2
Kedric glanced at the time index on his workstation. Three hours into his shift, and not even a rock to shoot at, much less the outlaws he was there to fight. The mission statement of the United Advancement Entity was to protect the Colonies against rogue factions. But so far on the UAEN Elysium, they hadn’t encountered a single one. Instead, they were running errands for the Mars Colony, moving freight to some unknown research facility. He looked over at Dewitt, briefly watched as the helmsman ran a docking simulator on his station.
An alert sounded from the ops console and Clydeman reported. “XO, you might want to take a look at this. I’m picking up two ships, fast inbound, no transponders.”
The XO, Girbach, sat up in his chair. “Hostiles? How far?”
“They're eighty thousand kiltrons and closing,” Clydeman said. “Heat signatures suggest weapons are active.”
“Prepare to engage.”
An alert thrummed through the control room, but Kedric barely heard it. He was already focused on the tactical scope. His heart rate doubled. This was it. They were finally going to see some action. He locked his chair into the console and brought up the scope. The ship’s telescopic rangefinders streamed directly into his optic implants, giving him a spliced view of both ships. Crosshairs appeared as his fingertips settled on the control pads, tingling briefly when the synapse contacts engaged the neuroreceptors. He locked onto the targets and the smartsystems did the rest, calculating the range and trajectory in nanoseconds, then adjusting the positioning of all thirty-six hull-mounted turrets to be in the perfect position.
“I’ve got them on scope, sir,” Kedric said over the chatter from the other stations.
“Hold fire,” Girbach said.
Kedric’s scope lit up as his interface identified over fifty inbound projectiles. Each targeting box turned green as the SmartSystem established a weapons lock. “HV’s incoming.”
“Take them out, Mister Sonoda. Fire at will.”
All Kedric had to do was push the button. One down. Six more went green and he fired without hesitation. Three shots missed, thrown off by laser scattering or some other diversionary tactic. The projectiles were coming in too fast. He set the turrets to fire on a pattern spread to try and take out as many as possible. A flickering of boxes vanished from the display, but not all of them.
“Brace for impact,” Clydeman said. The ship rumbled and Kedric’s scope went white.
“Damage Report,” Girbach demanded.
Clydeman scrutinised his display. “No direct hits, Sir.”
“Good. Throw everything we’ve got at them, Mister Sonoda.”
Kedric flicked his view back to the scope. Now that the blinding light from the explosions had dissipated, he could see the attacking ships up close. They were an old blocky design with sharp angles and square edges. They were covered in black light-absorbing lamination, which barely contrasted against the star-speckled backdrop.
They were already too close for hyperbeams; Kedrick switched to the rail drivers and launched a spread across their arc. One slipped past, and within seconds it was close enough, he fired the electrothermal accelerators. Problem was, they weren’t slowing to intercept, they were doing a pass by. The enemy closed the gap of ten thousand kiltrons in a matter of seconds, then they were heading away from the battle. It was the perfect time to strike.
The lock indicator on the two main targets went green. Before he could give the command, the ship rumbled violently. The scope went dark, and the screech of tearing metal deafened him. Inertia pulled him away from his seat, flinging him about like an invisible tornado, but the suspension fields held him in place.
When he looked around, the control room was in disarray. Fire suppression jets built into the floor and ceiling smothered eager flames, alerts blinked on every interface, and officers staggered back to their stations. Looking out the viewing portal, he could see a large egg-shaped pod jutting out of the hull. Insectile legs on the pod latched onto the ship’s metal plating.
“We’re being boarded,” Clydeman said, ripping open a wall panel to expose a rack of handheld blasters. He took them out one by one and distributed them to Girbach and the other officers. The last one he tossed across the room and Kedric caught it with both hands. The charge indicator and sight appeared in his optic implants. He raised the weapon and the safety interlock switched to ‘live fire’.
“Hold the bridge,” Girbach ordered, pointing his weapon towards the port side entrance. He spoke into his link, “Security, get a team down to the hold and remove that Martian cargo.”
A distorted voice replied, “Sir, we’re being boarded, I need every hand available to—”
“They’re here for the cargo, soldier. Get it off the ship. That’s an order!”
“Understood, sir.”
A tense silence fell over the room, except for muffled shouts beyond the control room doors.
“All this for some Martian cargo?” Kedric said. “It makes no sense.”
Girbach snorted. “You don’t use a battleship to move just any old cargo. Looks to me like the Martians have set us up.”
The door snapped open and Kedric held his shots when the first people through were wearing blue and white, the UAE colours. Corpses. Behind them were grotesque abominations wearing body armour. They pushed the dead crew forwards, using them as meat shields. The Friendly Fire Inhibitor in his blaster wouldn’t let him get a shot off. The mutants stood two metrons tall and looked like deformed ‘roid junkies. He aimed high to satisfy the FFI and started shooting, but the shots ricocheted, leaving only a scorch on the mutant’s warty hide. One invader bared pointed teeth at him, tossed its human shield aside and lunged across the room. The fist collided with his head like a boulder, then everything went black.
***
When he awoke, Kedric was lying on the floor, an invisible force bound him, pressing his arms to his chest. The room was filled with smoke, and the emergency lighting flashed red, but the fighting had stopped. The rest of the bridge crew were with him at the back of the room, bound in similar positions. All except for Girbach. The XO’s headless corpse slumped in the command chair.
Four hulking mutants gathered around, talking to the Martian representative with the orange hair and a scar down his face, who had accompanied the exigent cargo. Kedric couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in his ears, but the Martian pointed at him and one of the mutants approached.
Kedric groaned, struggling against the invisible binding. “You’ve taken the ship, got the cargo. What more do you want with us?”
The mutant sneered. “You will take us to Altos-4. Congratulations on your promotion, Captain.”
Kedric didn’t know how to react. He was expecting a prolonged and painful death at the hands of the mutants, not a field promotion. “Captain? Why me?”
The mutant grinned, exposing pointed teeth. “We executed the captain and executive officer. Our informant tells us you’re the next in line.”
“No, I mean, why do you need me to take you?”
“They’re expecting this ship. You will fly right past their defenses and give us access to the cave of wonders.”
The air on the command deck still smelled of burnt chemical smoke and it made Kedric cough. “Well, you can go fuck yourselves. We’re loyal to the Colonies. You’re going to have to kill every single one of us and learn how to fly this ship yourselves.”
Kedric knew that the ship was next to useless without the command codes that he now inherited via the chain of command, but he would let the mutants work that out after he and his crew were dead.
The mutant lunged forward, seized Kedric by the throat and pinned him against the wall. “I know what you’re trying to do, but we aren’t going to kill you. We’re just going to make you suffer.” Kedric kicked his legs about, feeling the entire weight of his body hanging from his neck and wondering how his head was still attached. He gritted his teeth and stared defiantly back at the grotesque mutant. He could hardly breathe. The edges of his vision started to fade and he prepared to embrace death. Instead, the mutant released him. Kedric’s feet touched the ground, his legs buckled and air rushed into his lungs. There he lay on the cold hard floor gasping for breath.
“Bring him to the hold,” the mutant said.
Before Kedric could protest, he was heaved up over one of the mutant’s shoulders and carried away like a disobedient child. “Put me down,” he demanded. “If you’re going to torture me in front of my crew, at least give me the dignity of walking there myself.”
He couldn’t see if there was a silent exchange between the mutants. No words were spoken, but they stopped and he was set back on his feet. The mutant who had been carrying him shoved him forwards and so he walked—hands still bound to his chest—through the empty corridors to the cargo hold.
The doors opened onto a steel walkway overlooking rows of containers mag-locked to the deck. They pushed him over the edge and a suspension field broke his fall, lowering him gently to the floor. The mutants followed, landing with a soft clank of their boots touching down on the metal plating.
The exigent cargo had already been opened to reveal a stasis chamber, a long cylindrical glass container with a mutant frozen inside. Tubes ran all over him, interlacing around his neck and vital organs. Though he wasn’t grotesquely deformed like the others, the man inside simply looked ridiculously oversized and muscular. The cylinder was set upright, like a statue of some mythical deity casting judgement over them.
A mutant approached the control interface at the base of the stasis chamber and entered a command. A vial ejected from the side filled with crimson blood. It was locked it into an injector and handed it to another mutant.
Kedric started to back away. “What is this?”
A mutant grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to hold him still while the other approached with the injector, pointing its long menacing syringe in Kedric’s face. With no way to run, all he could do to try and avoid the needle was to turn his head, but even that only delayed the inevitable.
“Stay still, unless you want to lose an eye,” the mutant said.
He watched the needle approach slowly and enter the inside corner of his eye. It stung, but was not nearly as painful as he expected. Then pressure started building in his brain like a headache and his perception of reality started to waver. The room seemed to melt away and his heartbeat filled his ears like someone pounding on a drum. The deity in the chamber loomed over him, and he felt the presence of someone else in his mind.
Surrender to me and you will be rewarded with greatness.
“How are you doing this? You’re frozen in stasis.”
Not for long.
“Who are you?”
I am the next evolution of humanity. You will bend to my will and do my bidding.
“What if I refuse?”
Our bloods are now forever mingled. You can never be rid of me, until death.
Kedric tried to resist as the other presence relentlessly bombarded his thoughts. He had been trained to withstand torture and interrogation at the academy. Taught how to create barriers in his mind and to lock himself inside. This was nothing like his training. The thoughts seeped in like water through cracks in a cave wall.
“Get out of my head.”
It’s too late for that now.
Kedric realised the entity was wearing him down, and he fought harder, pushing away the thoughts of giving up, of not fighting any longer.
“Why are you doing this? You’ve already taken the ship.”
Open your mind and I’ll show you.
“I'll never let you in my—.”
You don't really have a choice.
Kedric felt like the invisible barrier between their minds was melting. The blood was making its way into his brain, carrying with it the microscopic biological connection to a being that was no longer human.
What was the point of resisting? He was completely powerless to stop any of the events set in motion. He was just a cog in the machine, playing his part like everyone else. He was exhausted and fatigued. The sooner he gave in, the better it would be for him and his crew.
He needed to accept the situation and embrace his new master. His consciousness faded and vision dimmed until eventually there was nothing.
When the room came back, Kedric was lying on the floor, his arms still fastened across his chest. His head ached and he was drenched in sweat. He looked up at the empty stasis chamber. The floor was cold from the residual wisps of vapour that flowed out of the container. Kedric’s heart began to race.
“I’m right here,” the voice said in his head and out loud in unison. It hurt his brain.
He turned to see the supposed next evolution of humanity. Kedric’s new master. He was tall and muscled, with skin almost as pale as his white hair. Dark patches around his bloodshot eyes indicated he hadn’t slept for cycles. But there was also something inhuman about him. Something that Kedric couldn’t quite figure out.
“Someone on the crew activated the comms array and sent a message,” a mutant said.
Kedric instantly recalled the automated status feed.
“It wasn’t the crew,” his master said. “The ship sends out automated status updates to the fleet. We’ll need to report back to the fleet commander and let him know we were able to destroy the threat.”
The mutant in charge grinned. “How long until we get to Altos-4?”
Kedric tried to blink away the fog from his brain, tried not to think of the answer.
“Damage to the Elysium was trivial. Once the crew have repaired it, we will embark. Tell your soldiers to be ready in two hours.” Kedric couldn’t tell if he had spoken or if it had come from his master. The line that separated his consciousness from the other felt like it was getting thinner and thinner. He could barely tell which thoughts were his anymore.
The next evolution of humanity grinned at him and reality began to melt again. Kedric could sense himself slipping away. It felt like falling, even though he was vaguely aware of his legs still being firmly planted on the floor. The darkness felt like a release. It embraced him and he was at peace.
Free at last.