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 2

Their path to the docks was marked by dead bodies. The guard post at the transport terminal wasn't yet informed that the terrorists had broken out of the brig, and there were no problems. But, while the pod was taking them through the base's spaces, Lemak already had the information; the two silent guard posts were clearly pointing at the path of retreat. The squads concentrated at the brig started moving towards the docks; everything was coming down to seconds. Kal and T/san vanished somewhere, Lemak hadn't even noticed. He stayed at the console, since clear leadership was now more important than his personal presence. Everyone near the docks, who was battle-worthy, was gathered in the terminal room. A short hallway led from there to the terrorists' ship, which meant they had to be stopped there.

Lemak now knew what his primary mistake had been: he had allowed Kay to take the boy. Now they were no longer capable of using heavy weaponry for fear of hitting Arthur. All they had left were stunners and intelligent weapons with activated humane circuits, which wasn't so little, but far from what Lemak would have preferred.

They would have to rely on their numerical advantage. Two dozen people, located throughout the entire terminal room, was too many to be wiped out by initial blasts.


The transport pod had fit them all without too much difficulty, even the Meklar. The small car with mirrored walls was flying through the base on the springy cushion of a magnetic field. It had an independent power supply and controls; the demands of combat reliability were now working against the masters of the orbital station. It was impossible for them to stop the pod.

Kay was looking into the clean mirror, adjusting his uniform. It had already served its purpose, this simple disguise, which lulled the kid at the first guard post and the three soldiers at the second one into a false sense of security. They could really use some armor now, but, unfortunately, it was currently being kicked by marines, who had burst into Lemak's office, in a fit of impotent rage.

"Twenty seconds to arrival," the Meklar informed them. He was standing by the wide door, trying to shield the more fragile humans. "Do it."

Kay took a single-use transmitter from out of his uniform pocket and pressed a button. The short spiral of the antenna glowed slightly. The extra radiation wouldn't do much harm to them now, but their lives depended on the power of the signal.

"If your ship hears us," Kas/s/is said, "then we'll be incredibly lucky."

Throwing the transmitter aside, Kay held the Excalibur at the ready. Andrey, whose metal shoulders were laden with two young bodies, was as limited when it came to combat as he'd been in his damaged armor.

The hyperboat was still disguised as a cargo hauler. The hull around the hatch was melted slightly, while a tiny pile of ashes marked the result of someone's attempt at getting inside. The boat was now left alone, only two Hunters were guarding the hypothetical enemies hiding aboard the ship. Their reaction time was faster than the boat's mechanisms, and they wouldn't miss another opening of the gunports.

When the hum of activating machinery came from the ship, the robots' turrets quivered, attempting to trace the source of the sound. But the boat had no intention of engaging in a laser duel with them. It was merely engaging the drives.

The combat robots had not been programmed to fight spaceships.

The gravity drive came on first. The vector of the thrust was oriented in a direction opposite of the robots, so they chose not to take any action. The massive sliding doors of the hatch shuddered, bending under the virtual mass, but held. The boat started to slowly slide to the cargo hallway.

The movement continued for fractions of a second, until the plasma accelerator came on, a grave violation of the rules aboard a station. After a momentary hesitation, the Hunters interpreted it as an attack, and six laser beams started to swipe at the engines.

If they had more time, they probably could have burned their way through tritanium. But the firestorm raging through the dock knew no mercy.

…At first, all the people in the terminal room heard was a hum. Some of the soldiers, frozen in anticipation of the pod with the terrorists, chanced a look behind them. They saw the glow of hot air flowing from the hallway. Then, in the orange reflection of the approaching flames, two melted metal balls rolled into the room. Only a laser beam coming from a turret, which had somehow survived, marked them as Hunters.

Then death came for them.


The doors of the pod were opening reluctantly, in jerks. When the opening reached ten centimeters, a burning smell entered the pod. Kas/s/is put his forelimbs into opening and first pushed the pod doors apart and then the outer ones, which were melted and jammed. Beyond them was a stench-filled gloom.

"Gods," the cyborg said unexpectedly.

The air was hot and stifling; everything that could burn and everything that could melt had burned and melted. The air vents, sticking out of the walls, which no longer had their decorative tiles, were sucking in the streams of thick acrid fumes in gasps. It was the only reason they could still breathe.

There was also the smell of burnt flesh.

They came out of the pod: the Meklar first, then Kay, followed by Andrey with the boys on his shoulders. The soles of their shoes hissed, touching the floor, and even Kas/s/is rolled up on his legs. The charred human bodies, occasionally covered by the smoking armor, which had failed them, were piled in a corner of the room, where the firestorm had hurled them. Flames were still dancing on some of them.

Kay shook in a coughing fit. The cyborg was already walking down the hallway that led to the dock, while the Meklar was looking around, as if gauging the effectiveness of such an unconventional weapon.

"They won't forgive you," he said quietly. "You've overplayed your hand, Kay."

Sliding thin claws out of his paws, he shuffled along the red-hot floor. He stopped, examining a pile of metal, from which a thin beam, visible only in the clouds of smoke, went into the ceiling. One of the surviving light panels burst on the ceiling with a thin clatter, and the room grew even darker.

Kay ran after the Meklar. Andrey had already disappeared into the hallway, and a weak childlike moan let him know what one of the boys was regaining his senses. The temperature there was at least a hundred degrees Celsius, the biggest oven in history, not counting planets burned by meson bombs.

Kay stopped before the hallway, taking a big gulp of the hot air. The "combat cocktail" was already working, and his chemically boosted muscles would allow him to cross the distance in two to three minutes, but he wouldn't want to breathe in there.

Then there was an explosion behind him.

He turned around just in time to see a plasma shot blast one of the doors to the terminal open. The affected section of the station had been isolated, but this didn't stop the attacker.

Maybe Wanda Kahowski had noticed some asynchrony of movement in the ISS Meklar, but Kay thought that the enemy was perfect. The oddest thing about his appearance was a woman, the familiar blonde woman in light armor, sitting on the alien's back. Kay had never before met Meklars who permitted humans to take such liberties with them.

He lifted the Excalibur as quickly as he could, and he even managed to get ahead of the Meklar. A purple flash forced the alien to jump, almost throwing the grotesque rider off his back. Then Kay fired.

It was unpleasant to fire, already knowing he'd missed.

"Take them, T/san!" Isabella Kal shouted, jumping down to the floor. "Alive!"

And a plasma bolt, fired by the Meklar, switching to his combat transformation, blasted the Excalibur into a shower of white metal.