“No, just some civvies who wanted to fight back. Not many troopers left, they met the first collectors in the fields where they landed. Wasn’t the smartest idea in hindsight.” The alien sighed. “Come on, better take you to meet the colonel.”
Chapter Seventeen
The doors at the bottom of the tower block opened, the militia fighters leading the way as Michael followed behind them. His legs ached from the long walk down the tower, the elevator being out of action. It was startling how similar it was to the estates in London, the same ones that Michael had lived in all his life. Aside from the odd blinking light on door locks, it seemed the same. There was even graffiti on the walls, alien teens scrawling their names in illegible script. Michael could never make out what those illicitly scribbled tags said, even when they were written in English.
Their hosts had been stoically quiet as they had led them down the staircase. The missile launcher had clattered against the railing constantly being slightly too wide for the stairs as it hung from a strap over its wielder’s shoulder. Michael hadn’t dared break the silence; he wouldn’t know what to say if he did. Sorry, your world’s being invaded. How could he even begin to broach that?
Aileena had taken the rear as they had descended, and now they were crossing the street she held that position. Brekt had volunteered to stay aboard the Seeker in case the ship was needed. Parking it atop the building seemed like as good a spot they were going to get for now. They could always move it if needed. Aileena had tried to convince Mellok to stay with Brekt but he had insisted, claiming that he would be at least as useful as Michael. It was hard to argue against that, even if Mellok was unarmed. Michael still wasn’t a good shot.
“Keep low,” Aileena muttered, adopting a crouched run. “Stick close to any cover you can.”
“Your friend is right,” the fighter carrying the missile launcher said. He had given his name as Akob and seemed to be the leader of the small unit. “The machines’ sensors are powerful, but they are short-ranged. If they can’t see you, they can’t get close enough to use them.”
“What happens if they can use them?” Michael said. He was still ignorant about so much out here in space. He knew it risked making him sound stupid, but there wasn’t any other way to learn.
“Well then, my friend,” Akob said. “Then it won’t matter if they can see you or not. They’ll know exactly where you are no matter what you hide behind. You’re already dead at that point.”
“Wonderful. How long have you been fighting? When did these things arrive?”
“About two weeks, maybe a little longer. I’m starting to lose track of the days.”
“I’m sorry, two weeks?! I thought you might say months.”
Akob shook his head. “You must have seen crowds running as your ship came in? This city got hit in the last few days. There are still groups of survivors being rooted out by the collectors.”
“That battle in orbit can’t have been going on for weeks,” Aileena said. “Not from the firepower we saw on display. What happened to the planetary defences?”
“What defences?” Akob said with a snort. “Any ships in orbit were pulled away to fight the Substrate months ago. The fleet above arrived a few hours ago from what we can tell. Hard to get a good picture of what’s going on up there with the gear we have.” He shrugged, causing the launcher to swing on its strap. “They probably didn’t even expect to get into a fight. They certainly haven’t sent any troopers down to help us.”
“Likely they were coming here to collect any forces you had remaining,” Mellok said. “This planet is far from the border with the Substrate.”
“You’re probably not wrong. As soon as their drives are charged, they’ll jump out and leave us. We’re probably all just waiting for our beats to re-join the Rhythm. Living on borrowed time.” Akob came to a stop, crouching down close to the asphalt. His fingers felt around the edge of a manhole cover. “Still, we’ll fight to the end. We Purnaxians are a stubborn lot.”
The other fighters murmured in agreement as Akob slid the manhole cover free. There was a ladder beneath, leading into a tunnel under the street. A strong stench wafted from the open hole.
“Right,” Akob said. “Who’s first?”
Skorra was sitting in a tree, her legs dangling over the branches. Skorra had never seen trees before, her world covered in a thick layer of ice. Something about sitting in one felt right in a way she couldn’t quite explain. Climbing it had been the most natural thing in the world to her. She could feel the leaves moving around her, swaying in the breeze.
In her hands, Skorra was turning over a destroyed power relay. The device was smaller than she had expected, a cylinder the size of her forearm. Like most things aboard the Sword it was made of a pearlescent beige metal, though it was covered in scorch marks where heat had cracked the metal and escaped from within.
The Sword itself seemed to loom before her. Kestok had decided to land the ship near Brekt’s Landing, crushing a small copse of trees in the process. A constant stream of people were travelling back and forth, the now working recyclers turning spare scrap from the other ships into usable tools. Some of the people heading into the Sword were even riding the living beds, hanging onto the headboards like reins.
Skorra put the power relay down, resting it against the trunk of the tree. It wobbled uneasily before settling into a divot on the branch. Kestok had allowed her to take it, indulging her curiosity. Skorra had spent her life trying to unravel the secrets of the Sword, and now they were being laid out before her in easy to digest lessons. She loved it. Her people had operated the technology of their home, but they hadn’t understood it. Working things had become a mixture of rumours passed down by generations and trial and error.
From just her short time with Kestok and the others, Skorra understood so much more. She knew now that the relay was a more complex version of the electric switches that had been common in her own technology, along with acting as a kind of fuse. Replacing the damaged ones from the handful of spare parts they had found in the holds in the Sword had been easy. A simple case of popping out the damaged one and slotting in the replacement. From what Kestok had explained it was fabricating new ones that was hard, the elements required rare and expensive.
Skorra plucked one of the leaves from the tree and began tearing it apart absentmindedly. The relay was just a more advanced version of technology the current Merydians had. Did her ancestors use less advanced parts to make repairs easier for the tower? Had those who had fled the planet simply taken all the good components with them? Skorra often wondered if there was a colony of Merydians out there somewhere amongst the stars.
Her mind drifted to the race who had built Eden. Michael had said they hadn’t existed on his Earth, that something had wiped them out. Skorra couldn’t help but feel a kinship to them in a way, two races struck down in their prime. She wondered what the technology that made Eden was like. Was the planet’s power regulators another step above?
“Wait…” Skorra said out loud to herself. She picked up the relay, twisting it about in her hands. With a hop, she leapt from the branch to the trunk of the tree, the relay in one hand whilst the claws on the other dug into deep brown bark. She climbed down in a few short jumps, moving vertically coming naturally to her.
Burnt tube of metal in hand, Skorra ran excitedly towards the Sword, disappearing between the trees as she did.
The air stank. Michael had expected it to, after all, it was a sewer, but it was somehow worse than he had imagined. The people of Purnax were especially pungent. The sewer itself was huge, a large carved out tunnel with platforms on each side to walk on. It was tall enough for Michael to stand as they walked into the darkness. Every so often there was a dull glow, lights affixed to the walls that cast only the dimmest aura.