The Black Gate (The Messenger #11) - J.N. Chaney Page 0,63

a vac-armored figure lying on the piece of hull.

Lying on it? Why?

Even as the question occurred, he saw the answer.

“Oh, shit, no.”

“Dash, what is it?” Leira asked.

“The Deepers, that’s what.” He nudged the Archetype even closer.

The vac-armored figure, one of the tug’s crew, had been pinned against the hull by what looked like writhing tentacles of matter extruded from the wreckage. A second figure had been impaled on a jagged piece of wreckage by more of the twisting appendages. The Deeper material writhed obscenely in the low light, a macabre scene that had no place in hard vacuum.

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Dash cursed and brought the Archetype in as close as he could. As he did, he activated the fine grippers built into the tips of the mech’s massive fingers, while calling out to the Salvage Team over the comm.

There was no response.

As soon as he reached for the pinned figure, tentacles whipped out of the hull and wrapped tightly around the Archetype’s reaching digits. They weren’t even remotely powerful enough to inhibit the powerful actuators that animated the mech’s hand, but they were a problem for the more delicate manipulators. He pulled the hand back, easily ripping the tentacles free, whereupon they seemed to lose animation, becoming inert tendrils of hull matter. He reached again, but more of the things came writhing out of the hull.

“Sentinel, any ideas?” he snapped, frustrated that he had the power to utterly destroy this piece of debris, but that the Archetype was otherwise a blunt instrument for such delicate rescue work.

“It may be possible to cut away the section of hull in question. That may diminish its animate properties, or at least leave it with less material to work with.”

Dash nodded. The mech’s ranged weapons were far too destructive for such a precise task, so he deployed the power-sword.

“Dash, I have a suggestion. Allow the Archetype’s new, right-arm AI to control the movements of the sword. All due respect to you, but I believe that we can be much more precise.”

“Yeah, I ain’t too proud. Do it.”

Dash spent the next moments with his arm free, watching as the Archetype touched the power-sword to the hull and pushed, sliding the blade through the strange, light-eating amalgam of ceramic and organics. It then cut, slowly and surely, outlining a chunk of hull only slightly larger than the trapped tech, then levering it free. Dash caught it and backed the mech away so he could transfer the piece to a shuttle that Benzel had sent, hovering the Archetype a klick away from the original piece of hull.

“What about the other tech, Dash?” Leira asked. “They might still be alive.”

Dash nudged the Archetype back toward the wreckage. Seeing how thoroughly the tech had been impaled on a spike of debris, he couldn’t imagine him having survived. And yet—

“I am detecting life-signs,” Sentinel said. “There is a pulse, and I’m also detecting electrical activity in the individual’s brain.”

Dash shook himself, clearing the wave of empathy for what the tech was enduring. “Remind me to tell Custodian again how damned good that vac-armor is.” He eased the Archetype closer. “Okay, Sentinel, how do we do this?”

The solution ended up being simple. Dash used the power-sword to cut the tech free but left him impaled. It seemed like a horrible thing to do, but Sentinel and Custodian were both adamant—the vac-armor and its self-sealing systems might be keeping the tech alive, but so was the impaling spike. It was literally plugging the hole that had been punched through the man. Dash gingerly moved the badly injured tech back to the shuttle, which took off and made a straight shot back to the Forge to get them both into Custodian’s medical care.

Dash turned back to the chunk of debris, shuddering slightly at the thought of it being some form of alive.

“Screw that,” he muttered, targeting the hunk of wreckage and raking it with the dark-lance. “Hope it hurts like hell, too.”

“I doubt that the debris is actually sentient or capable of feeling pain or any other sensation,” Sentinel said. “However, I get the sense that isn’t the point of firing on it.”

“It isn’t. I did that for me,” Dash replied, powering the dark-lance back down.

Sentinel said nothing else. Dash knew she was undoubtedly right, that the debris couldn’t actually feel anything—that it was just obeying some sort of AI-driven agenda to attack anyone or anything that got near to it. But he didn’t care. In his imagination, the Deeper wreckage