This is a fan translation of Line of Dreams (Линия грёз) by the Russian science fiction and fantasy author Sergei Lukyanenko. The novel can be considered a fan fiction of the original Master of Orion game.
Chapter 12
It was impossible to escape from such a prison. The cells had no exit; it only appeared when necessary, on command from the control panel.
The hallway was narrow, not meant for a Meklar, who once again altered his shape and flattened himself.
"Why didn't they lock down the controls?" Kay asked rhetorically. "It's as if they wanted us to come here."
"Possibly," Kas/s/is agreed, walking in front of him. "But should we really be complaining about that?"
The door turned out to be closed, but the Meklar didn't even bother wasting a shot on it. He simply pressed his forelimbs against it and pushed it in.
A doctor was sitting behind a desk in a small white room. He quickly rose at the appearance of a Meklar and two humans in armor.
"I'm a civilian, and I have aTan," he said quickly. "You don't need to kill me. I'm not even required to resist… and I have no intention of doing that."
Kay's gaze swept the room. Three doors, a row of closed cabinets with glass doors. Medicine, instruments, a half-disassembled surgical robot on a diagnostic stand.
"Where's your patient, doc?" Kay asked.
"The boy? In the intensive care unit. He shouldn't be moved, his condition is extremely unstable."
The doctor smiled good-naturedly.
"Is he 'unstable' because of you?" Kay inquired. "Where?"
A nod towards one of the doors.
"Is he alone?"
Another nod, but this time it was too hasty.
"Kill him, Kas/s/is," Kay requested.
The Meklar swung a suddenly elongated limb, and the doctor's neck made a crunching sound. He fell to the floor with his head bent at an unnatural angle.
Kay and the Meklar exchanged glances.
"Let's try," the Meklar decided, gracefully approaching the indicated door. Kay stood to the left of him, about two meters away. Without turning around, he told Tommy, "Stay behind the threshold. Watch the room. If anything goes wrong, go to Andrey."
He activated the Seraph's plasma mode and touched the wall carefully. The plastic was melting like a snowflake in a fire.
"Go," Kay said.
With a single movement, the Meklar broke through the door, entering through it halfway. At the same time, Kay stepped through the wall.
Covered with a sheet up to his neck, Arthur lay on a tall bed, which was bulky from all the built-in equipment. At the head, a thickset man in a bright orange shirt was sitting, smiling wryly. He didn't have a weapon, only a small cylinder, which he was pressing against the boy's head.
"Hello," the man said. "You've killed the doctor? I admit, he deserved it."
Kay and Arthur looked at one another silently. For some reason, Kay was certain that the boy had recognized him, even though the warped dome of the powered helmed, in an armor wrapped in flames and melted plastic.
"I'm holding a shock grenade with its pin removed," the man said. "If I die, his head will crack open like a nut. Got it?"
Arthur's face was a pale green color with sunken cheeks. Even his eyes had changed… losing the authoritativeness of a little prince.
"You'll die too," Kay said.
"So what? I have aTan, thanks to Curtis. But you want the boy alive, right? And he doesn't want to die either… for some reason."
"Kay," Arthur said quietly. "Kill him… we'll start over. I promise, we'll go together again."
The fat man's face quivered.
"As you can see, we have options," Kay told him good-naturedly. "So, how about an exchange? The boy's life for yours."
"There are no more options," he heard from behind him. "Lower your weapons, but very slowly. Especially you, lizard. Keep in mind, I'll react to any open gunports."
For the first time that day, Kay Dutch felt that he had lost. He turned, slowly, as his unseen enemy with a vaguely familiar voice had demanded.
A mechanist with a silver face was holding them at gunpoint. Both of them; she was holding an Ultimatum, casually gripped in her left hand. Her right hand held a small pistol. The light armor did more to emphasize her figure than hide it.
Tommy lay at her feet, his weapon on the floor.
"You shouldn't expect too much from a child," the mechanist said. "He was so enthralled by your conversation, and stun blasts go right through cermet. Do you know why I didn't paralyze you from behind, Kay?"
Kay shook his head.
"My name is Marjan. We worked together once."
"Hi, Mohammadi," Kay said. "You've changed."
"Hi, Altos. Our people will be here shortly, and everything's going to be fine. We can talk until then. You know my reaction speed and won't do anything stupid. I don't give a shit about the lizard, I'll vaporize him if he so much as twitches. It's too bad you won't survive the blast… Louis, don't slack off!"
"I have no intention of doing that!" the man with the shock grenade replied in a reassured voice. The Meklar hadn't turned around, only extending a single eye to look behind him.
"You're pretty good," Mohammadi continued. "You do an honest job and fight for your client to the last. You shouldn't have come here, of course, but, since you've signed a contract… Have you died a lot?"
"A few times."
"Seen any of our people? I've lost touch a while ago."
"Saw Nick," Kay said. "He left the League, started his own business. He's on Kulthos now… married."
"Loser," Mohammadi decided. "What about Dinar?"
"Don't know. Can I turn off the plasma?"
"Feeling hot? Go ahead."
The plasma tongues fell away. Kay continued to stand, not trying to lift the Excalibur. If there was no shot, then he wouldn't be able to pull the trigger in time. Was that right, Mr. Martyzenski?
It was a stupid way to get caught. Shameful.
"You climbed too high, Kay," Marjan went on. "Too tough for you. You should've just stayed protecting rich old ladies and moonlighting on—"
There were two blasts. Marjan's arms exploded, bursting into fountains of flesh and metal. The Ultimatum, still gripped in her severed hand, flew aside into a corner, while the pistol was simply melted. The next moment, Kay leapt to the mechanist, who was swaying, shocked, having lost all her terrifying beauty.
Kay hit her in the chest, enjoying the strength of his armor. Ribs broke with a crunching sound, and the woman flew back against the wall.
Something exploded behind Kay, and he heard two screams that had merged together: Arthur's thin, choking voice and Louis's squeal.
Kicking Marjan's chin (another crunch thanks to the servomotors), Dutch ran to the Meklar. Andrey, standing at the door, continued to keep his laser gun trained on the motionless mechanist. He clearly had a lot of respect for the survivability of those like him.
Kas/s/is didn't need any help. The Meklar was finishing crumpling something that had only recently been a human body with his forelimbs. One of the middle paws was lying on Arthur's head. There was smoke above the bed, and a small crater had appeared in the wall.
"Many humans are of a high opinion about the importance of hair in their appearance," the Meklar said, continuing his exercises with the improvised ball. "We think that hair is an atavism, unworthy of our human friends. The boy ought to adopt this point of view."
Kay pulled the Meklar's paw away from Arthur's head. Curtis Jr. was no longer screaming, probably because he no longer had any strength to scream. His hair had burnt completely, his skin had gone red and was covered in blisters. But, considering the circumstances, the Meklar's shot, which had vaporized the shock grenade, could be called exemplary. Louis had forgotten to account for the simple fact that a shock grenade contained no explosive material, only an infrasonic generator. Had there been anything else in his hands, the Meklar would have been helpless.
"You can take it, boy," Kay said. He reached out to the boy's face… and stopped, as the armor was still too hot. "Endure it, kings don't cry. I'll get you out."
"That may be, but, for now, I'll have to carry him," the Meklar noted calmly.
"Put the boy to sleep."
There was a blue flash.
Kay moved his gaze away from the slowly relaxing face and said, "I'll grab the other one."
"Are we deviating from the plan?" Kas/s/is inquired.
"We are."
"May I ask why?"
"They no longer look like one another."
"Uh-huh," the Meklar said in such a human manner that Kay shuddered. He went into the next room, past the dead doctor, past the stunned Tommy and Andrey, who was peering into the hallway. He bent down over Marjan, who was lying in a pool of blood. There was now an additional hole gaping in her chest.
"I wanted to be sure," the cyborg informed him. "She had an organic heart."
"Really? I have an order for a piece of silver…"
The mechanist's ears were also metallic; a skillful mask, which would have suited an evil goddess. Kay Dutch tore off an earlobe and told the motionless body, "Maybe I am getting in over my head, but you're the one who's heading for the scrapyard."
Marjan did not reply. Not because she was dead, as Andrey and Dutch thought. The backup blood pump, which was typically only used during straining physical activities, was pulsing feverishly, supplying the brain and the liver with blood. Valves were clamping down on damaged arteries. Electrodes in her brain were suppressing the unbearable pain.
Andrey did not even suspect that, for some mechanists, the heart was no longer a vital organ.
