Approaching Omega Read Online Free PDF Page B

hell's that doing up here?"
    Then Latimer made out a host of other drones and roboids behind it, a veritable regiment. He peered, squinting.
    The drone was advancing. As he watched, it extended something from the bulk of its body and fired.
    He heard a small explosion in the corridor beyond, and the image on the monitor went blank.
    Then he heard a quick skittering sound coming from beyond the hatch.
    The drone appeared in the cut-away section of the hatch and let go with a volley of laser fire. Latimer returned fire, along with Emecheta, hitting the drone with little seeming effect. A stray vector struck Emecheta and he cried out in pain.
    Li ran towards the dropshaft and yelled at the others to join her. While Renfrew laid down a constant hail of laser fire, Latimer hauled Emecheta on to the up-plate. Renfrew came last, still firing, and the second she was on the plate Latimer stabbed the controls and they rose towards the command unit and safety.

Three
    "You'll live," Li said. She applied a seal of synthi-flesh to the wound on Emecheta's upper arm, then administered a hypo-ject analgesic.
    Latimer locked the hatch to the dropshaft. Emecheta looked across at him. "You think that'll hold?"
    "They can't open it from the underside," Latimer said.
    "What about with cutting tools?"
    Latimer was silent for a second, then said: "I'd rather not think about that."
    Li was staring at them, wide-eyed. "You don't think they...?"
    Emecheta flexed his injured arm. "Who the hell knows what to think? Who'd think the drones'd arm themselves and attack us in the first place? Some bad shit's gone down back there."
    Into the following silence, Renfrew said quietly: "Did anyone else see it?"
    Latimer looked across the unit at her. She had been silent since reaching the safety of the unit, sitting by herself on a swivel-chair and nursing her pistol.
    "What?" he asked.
    "On the monitor, behind the drone and the other roboids. I thought I saw..." She fell silent, shaking her head.
    Emecheta said: "What the fuck, Serena, do you think you saw?"
    Renfrew looked up at the staring faces. "You mean, none of you saw it?"
    "For chrissake," Latimer said.
    "I could swear I saw a figure, a human figure. It was standing at the end of the corridor, in the shadows."
    Latimer felt an icy shiver pass down his spine.
    "Impossible!" he said. "Listen, the pods were programmed to wake the sleepers at journey's end. There's no way they could've—"
    "Hey, boss," Emecheta said, quietly. "You forget who's in charge down there, now."
    Li said: "But why would they wake up a sleeper?"
    "Listen," Latimer said. "Serena said she thought she saw a figure. The lighting down there wasn't so good, was it? So she was mistaken."
    Emecheta moved towards the dropshaft.
    "Where the hell do you think you're going?" Latimer said.
    "There's only one way to settle this. I'll get the monitor. It'll have recorded everything the cam relayed."
    "You want another laser burn, this time in your chest?"
    Emecheta ignored him. He took Li's laser and, a pistol in each hand, unlocked the dropshaft hatch and stepped on to the plate.
    "Emecheta!" Latimer said. He almost lifted his pistol, then, and threatened the Nigerian. Something stopped him, the realisation that nothing would prevent Emecheta from retrieving the monitor.
    "Don't worry, boss, I'll take care."
    He dropped.
    Latimer ran to the aperture in the floor and stared down. Emecheta was crouching on the drop-plate, hand on the controls, inching his way down. There was no sign of the rogue drone down there, or any of its cohorts — which didn't mean a thing. If one of them were in hiding beyond the hole in the hatch, just waiting for a human to show himself...
    The drop-plate reached the deck. The monitor lay where Latimer had left it, about a metre from the shaft. All Emecheta had to do was reach out and grab it.
    He reached, got hold of the monitor and pulled it towards him — and then the firing began. A tracery of white light volleyed