Approaching Omega Read Online Free PDF

took over. He cut a line at right-angles to the vertical slice, then downwards to create a small door-shape.
    Five minutes later he killed the cutter, placed it on the floor and kicked at the crude door-shape with his right boot. The section of metal fell away and landed on the corridor beyond with a loud, ringing clang.
    He stood back, grinning. "After you," he said, indicating the aperture.
    Latimer ducked and made to ease himself through.
    The laser vector almost decapitated him. He felt the heat of it as it passed over his shoulder, was aware of an instant of blinding white light, then felt hands on his legs, hauling him back. A second vector lanced through the opening, missing him by centimetres.
    He lay on the floor next to Emecheta, who had evidently saved his life. Renfrew was backed up against the bulkhead, knuckles to her mouth, staring at him.
    Li was already unfastening her medi-kit and fishing out some kind of salve. She applied it to his neck, even before Latimer realised he'd been burned.
    Then she hit him with a hypo-ject. "Pain-killer," she explain. "Christ, you were lucky, Ted."
    He stood and moved away from the opening in the hatch, staring at the laser burn on the far wall. "What the hell was that?" he said.
    "How about this," Em said. "A rogue drone. One of those factory critters. One of Central's slaves has gone berserk."
    Latimer stared at him. "They can do that?"
    The Nigerian shrugged. "Any other suggestions?"
    Li said: "What about the sleepers, Ted?" in a small, frightened voice.
    Latimer's belly contracted and he nearly vomited the concentrate he'd forced down on awakening.
    Carrie ...
    "We should arm ourselves," he said. "There's no telling if it'll try to come through."
    Emecheta nodded and picked up the cutter from the floor. He moved to the hatch and positioned himself next to the aperture, the cutter poised to slice anything that might venture through.
    "Jenny," Latimer said, "break out four lasers from stores. Serena, go with her. Bring back one of those remote surveillance cams and a monitor, okay?"
    They ran to the upshaft and disappeared.
    "Another thing they never trained us to cope with," Emecheta grinned.
    "I'm an engineer, Em, not a damned soldier. I volunteered for the mission to build a new world out there, not fight rogue drones."
    "Know why I volunteered?"
    Latimer smiled. "To drive me nuts?"
    "Apart from that," Emecheta said. He glanced at the hatch, then back to Latimer. "The challenge. Adventure. I thought, who knows what we'll find out there. One thing I was sure about, though. We could beat it. Ingenuity, logic. We can beat anything if we just think it through, okay?"
    "Hope you're right, Em," Latimer said, and thought again of Carrie.
    The dropshaft purred, lowering the women. They carried two laser pistols apiece. Li had the surveillance cam and monitor in a backpack.
    The cam was a tiny flyer, about the size of a dragon-fly. Latimer set the monitor on the deck well away from the hatch and readied the cam. It lifted, bobbed. He experimented with the controls, finally managed to patch a picture through to the monitor. The image was grainy, showing an unstable image of the corridor as the cam rose and fell.
    Emecheta lay aside the cutter and joined the others behind the monitor. He took up a pistol, directing it at the hatch, while Latimer manoeuvred the dragon-fly cam. It hovered towards the hatch and disappeared through the cut-away section.
    All eyes were on the monitor.
    The corridor was in darkness until the passing of the cam tripped a sequence of dim wall lights. Even then the image was indistinct. Latimer made out the ribbed walls and grey floor of the corridor, broken by frequent static, some dysfunction of the telemetry phasing the image from colour to granular black and white.
    Latimer estimated that the cam had travelled about five metres when he made out a squat, four-legged shape in the centre of the screen.
    Li pointed. "A manufactory drone," she said. "What the