Under A Winter Sun by Johan Dahlgren (ink ebook reader txt) 📕

She opens the satchel and pulls out a small remotely controlled drone, no larger than my palm, and holds it out like a cookie.

I nod. “Do it.”

Jagr detaches a remote control from the drone and throws the little machine into the air. It goes airborne almost without sound. There's a small screen on the remote where we can see what the drone sees.

She drives it this way and that, trying to get a feel for how it handles, then sends it off down the shaft.

The blue light grows brighter on the small screen as the little machine buzzes away from us, down into the unknown.

When the vast ship was under thrust, this corridor was a deep well. Pipes and tubes of unknown function cover the walls, floor, and ceiling. This could be an old elevator shaft. If so, the elevators are long gone.

On the screen, the blue light has grown bright enough to read the floor numbers on the walls. We're nearing the bridge.

A sudden movement at the edge of the display draws my eye.

“Hold it, Jagr. Back up.”

“Backing up.”

There's nothing there.

Strange, I was sure I saw something.

“My mistake. Proceed.” I pat Jagr's shoulder, and she flies off down the shaft again.

According to the markings on the walls, the bridge is not far ahead and Jagr slows down.

“What was that?”

The priest points at the screen. “I saw something. There it is again,” he squeals.

His breath clouds in the frosty air and obscures the screen. Skallagrim clamps a hand over the little man's face. The priest makes suffocating noises but otherwise falls silent.

Jagr aims the little craft at where the priest was pointing. Is there something moving there? I lean in and squint to make it out on the tiny display.

There's a hiss of static and the screen goes dead.

“Drone one lost,” says a cheerful woman's voice from the remote.

Jagr blinks. “What the fuck?”

“You heard it. We lost drone one.”

My communicator hisses with a brief burst of static. “Electronic attack detected,” Aeryn says.

“What?”

“A protovirus is attempting to breach my core. Its structure resembles that of the ghost entity.”

Shit. “Can you stop it?”

“For now.”

“Good. Let me know how it goes.” So, someone is here, and they're trying to break into our systems.

“Jagr, someone is trying to hack us.”

“What? Who?”

“No idea. But someone is in here, and they are trying to stop us.”

“Right. So, what happened to the drone?”

“Maybe the signal doesn't reach further,” I suggest with a shrug. “Please tell me you recorded the video, Jagr.”

“I did.”

“Play the last few seconds. Slowly.”

She touches a button on the controller. “Playing back.”

The video crawls on.

Then it stops in static.

“Back one tenth of a second and play frame by frame.”

Jagr complies, and the video advances frame by frame.

“There,” I point to the video, but it has gone to static again. “Back one frame and freeze.”

Jagr complies, and there it is. Something attacked the drone. Something blurry, but mechanical. It was swift enough to only be visible in a single frame of a hyper-speed video feed.

Jagr stares at the screen in disbelief. “What the fuck is that?”

A deep rumble reverberates through the vast empty passages. The ship rings like a bell and once more, lightning arcs between the walls and floor.

“God's hairy balls,” the priest tears free from Skallagrim and shrieks in panic. Skallagrim clamps his hand over the priest's face again.

The rumble cuts out.

Hildr looks around. “By the gods. What was that?”

The blue light down the passage pulses like a heartbeat.

Jagr gives it a moment's thought.

“Right, no need to be silent anymore. Perez. You and Wagner go on. The rest hold here with me.”

“Right. Come on Finn, you heard the lady.”

Finn grunts as we enter the shaft and climb down towards the light.

“Defences at twelve percent. Breach imminent.” The unnatural calm of the construct belies the urgency of its words.

“Shit. Do your best, Aeryn. I would hate to lose you.”

“That's comforting.”

We move with caution, climbing over pipes and girders, down towards the pulsing light. Things move in the shadows, but as soon as I look their way they're gone. It must be my mind playing tricks on me.

The pulsing blue light grows more and more intense until I can make out its source.

We have reached the ship's bridge. The blue light comes from a giant floating holographic navigation sphere, like the one on the Shiloh. How that thing can still be active after three hundred years is beyond me. The engineers of old must have known what they were doing.

Below the sphere is a tall shrine, constructed of enormous animal bones, leering garm skulls and white fur. It reaches almost to the south pole of the spinning globe and smells as bad as it looks.

Apart from the blue sphere, nothing moves, and I call the others. “Get down here, Jagr. You want to see this.” I lower the Aitchenkai and walk out into the chamber, craning my neck to take in the room. I clap my hands and spread my arms, and Soledad's drones fan out to bathe the chamber in cold white light. The room is fifteen metres high, by thirty wide, circular, and domed like the bridge on the Shiloh. Some things in starship design never change.

The room was stripped of all valuable equipment long ago. The Goliaths must have been mining the ship for supplies for decades. I guess the origin of the lintel over the gate of Hrafnheim is no longer a mystery.

“Breach imminent.”

“Who are they? Can you trace them?”

“The signal keeps switching bands. I can't track it.”

“Shit. Keep trying, Aeryn.”

“I am.”

Jagr, Hildr, Skallagrim and Rivera join us. Finn and Skallagrim slap a legionnaires' handshake. Something is going on between those two. Good for them.

We stare in silent disbelief at the shrine and the spinning globe. The priest drops to his knees. “My god.”

For a moment all that moves in the chamber is the sphere and the clouds of water vapour from our breath.

I watch the shadows. Even if there's no movement, there could be all kinds