Boyd pulled the pulse pistol off his right hip and open the channel to the group on the asteroid’s surface.
“Arm yourselves! We are under attack!”
4
Scrambling over the ridge, the horde came forward in a chaotic wave. They ran and clambered, propelling themselves forward. With no environmental suits, they lacked the artificial gravity field that held Boyd and his squad to the surface. The scrambling wave came tumbling forward, drifting across the asteroid at a few meters’ height before the weak gravitational field pulled them back down, their arms and legs wheeling about chaotically before they touched down again and pushed themselves forward. Their arms flailed in an attempt to keep balance, legs running whether they were on the ground or floating above, as they advanced toward the Faction fighters.
Boyd raised his pulse pistol.
The group of Faction fighters closest to the ridge opened fire, the flash of pulse rounds flickering over the bodies that came surging from the crater. Pulse rounds, poorly aimed, raced away into space. Some struck the large black ship in the crater, fizzing over the indistinct surface.
Other pulse rounds struck home at their intended targets, punching holes in the first of the bodies that surged forward. Gore and blood erupted from fresh wounds, dark bloody globules floating in the weak gravity like rippling pools of red. The bodies that came next ran through the pools of floating blood, and it splattered over their half-naked bodies and lifeless faces.
Boyd took aim at one flailing body coming near, clawing hands reaching forward, its feet barely centimeters off the asteroid’s surface. There was no way these people could be alive as they were, unprotected against the vacuum, essentially naked to space. Their eyes had boiled out of their sockets and the tongues were swollen in their mouths. With only their light shipboard clothing to protect them against the vacuum of space, these people would have been dead in seconds.
As the bodies came closer, Boyd noticed some were wearing a familiar uniform.
“They are Union Fleet crew,” Boyd said. He took aim and opened fire.
A well-aimed pulse round struck the closest body square in the chest. The round punched a hole through the light uniform, and the wound spilled blood and gore into the vacuum, but there was not nearly as much erupting from the wound as Boyd would expect. The body tumbled away, knocked back by the force of the pulse round. The arms and legs were still flailing as it tumbled backward, spinning out of control back toward the crashed ship.
Still more came, and Boyd noticed not all were wearing the Union uniform. There were others in shabby outfits that looked more like those worn by a Faction crew.
Union crew and Faction crew came forward in a mass of lifeless eyes and clawing fingers, making their way toward the crew from the Odium Fist.
The Faction fighters gave a disorganized barrage of pulse pistol fire, then a wave of bodies overcame the barrage of rounds. The surging mass clattered into the fighters. Fists and clawing fingers against pulse pistol.
The fighters were set upon by the people in Union and Faction clothing, attacking with their bare hands, fingertips blackened from the blood pooling there. They clawed at the Faction fighters’ suits. A helmet was torn away from one of the Fist’s crew, his screams cut off abruptly as his voice shouted into the soundless void. Boyd glanced over and saw the fighter convulse as he choked on his own blood and vomited into space.
Another helmet was torn away as the small group from the Odium Fist was overwhelmed.
Boyd could see the fighters from the Fist were no match for these unarmed, crazy attackers. They were spread too thinly and had no structure to their defense.
“Fall back!” Boyd said on a channel to the whole group. “Fall back and tighten up! We need to get shoulder to shoulder and concentrate our fire.”
Boyd began backing up, firing at the bodies that came tumbling and clawing toward him. He drew his second pistol from under his arm. Walking backward and stepping carefully so as not to stumble over the loose asteroid surface, Boyd laid down defensive fire with both pistols. With the fire rate set to automatic, all he needed to do was hold down the trigger and let the pulse rounds fly. Aiming was hardly necessary as the attackers came on so densely packed that he could not miss.
“There must be something really good in that crashed ship for them to fight us off like this,” Raye said.
Boyd was too busy fighting off the attackers, but he did wonder how Raye could be so dense. Their movements were strange, and with no breathing apparatus or defense against the cold and the vacuum of space, it was obvious they were dead. But still they came, tumbling one over another, surging forward in waves.
And then from the crater came a fresh wave, bounding forward, knocking aside those flung back by the Faction fighters’ pulse pistols.
Boyd looked at the new wave of attackers coming from the position of the crashed vessel. He saw one with a pulse wound in his chest. He recognized it as the attacker he had first shot and sent tumbling away. All those that had fallen to the initial barrage were now returning and clawing their way forward, tumbling over their fellows to get at the Odium Fist’s crew.
The group of fighters from the Fist were now coming closer together, creating a stronger defense, and their fire was having more of an impact knocking back the attackers. Boyd took a moment to check how many fighters were still firing. Over half of the group were not. Boyd checked the status of those fighters. The environmental suits reported back that the environment had been compromised and the occupants were dead.
The attackers had been fought off, but still some came tumbling forward through the weak gravity, but none laid a hand on any of the Fist’s remaining crew. They were all struck by pistol fire and sent spinning back across the asteroid surface.
The communications system was overloaded with the remaining fighters shouting about what had just happened. Some were angry, shouting obscenities and firing into the dark, and others were calling for their lost friends. Some garbled voices were asking the impossible questions. Why were Faction and Union fighting as one? How were they attacking but clearly dead?
And what was this strange ship?
“Shut up, everyone,” Boyd said firmly over the communication channel. He went from one fighter to the next and shook them by the shoulders or smacked them on the side of the helmet. He gained eye contact with everyone and fixed them to silence.
Only one of them was not shouting.
Raye was staring at the crater rim. He looked over at Boyd, fury on his face.
“Let’s go and see what the krav is in there. I want to know what makes dead men fight.”
Boyd nodded and turned to face the crater and the crashed ship just over the ridge.
“All fighters, keep it tight,” Boyd said. Despite the firefight, he was perfectly calm. “Advance in step, watch out for any attackers, keep those pulse pistols raised and ready to fire.”
They advanced across the surface of the asteroid now littered with bodies from the Fist’s crew, the extreme environment suits torn from their bodies. Black eyes stared into black space. Boyd called out again to silence the chatter as they passed over their fallen friends.
“Focus on what’s ahead. We’ll deal with our friends when this job is done,” Boyd tried to add a touch of warmth and humanity to his voice as he knew these men had been shipmates, in some cases, for years. But Boyd had no pity for them other than basic human sympathy.
These people were nothing to him.
Reaching the edge of the crater, Boyd stared down at the ship. It was partially impacted on the surface, but from what remained above ground, Boyd guessed it was a large ship. It was of no known construction. The dark structures appeared to shimmer and move like a stick in water seems to move under the ripples on the surface. The ship hardly seemed to be part of the same universe as him.
“Follow me,” Boyd said as he scrambled down the crater to the side of the ship. The fighters were reluctant to follow, but with some encouragement from
Raye, they soon did.
Boyd walked along the side of the ship, its black hull seeming as distant, deep, and empty as space itself. He faced the dark material, shining his lamps directly onto the surface. The lights were not reflected.
Boyd continued to walk around and found himself alongside a large breach in the hull. It was deep and dark, his suit’s lights illuminating the interior of the vast cavernous space.
Boyd hesitated, reluctant to step inside.
Raye stepped up alongside him.
“What are you waiting for?” Raye shoved him hard and Boyd stumbled past the cracked hull and into the dark interior.
Once inside, his apprehension subsided and curiosity took over. He looked around, shining his light into the depths of the ship. He was in a large, open space.
“Is it Union?” Raye asked. “I have never seen anything like it. It must be some new Union ship. They thought they could keep it from us, but we found it.”
“I don’t think it’s Union,” Boyd said, seeing exotic material all around. He had never seen anything like it—no one had.
Boyd continued to move forward into the wide chamber that arced overhead. It was a large black sphere. He scanned the area with his wrist-mounted holo-stage. The readings came back reporting it was a perfect sphere. He was standing at the center point of the sphere, although he felt the floor beneath his feet. And as he moved forward, he stayed at the center. Looking over to Raye at his side, the Faction pirate appeared to be standing at the center point of his own sphere.
The walls were of the same material as the outer hull. It felt strange. Boyd moved forward cautiously, his eyes darting this way and that, looking for any movement.
Looking into the darkness above and then at the bottom half of the sphere below his feet, he shined a light into the darkness, Boyd saw dark shapes floating all around. He directed his light at one of the shapes.
This was clearly a creature not of the Scorpio System. Its body had ruptured and spewed soft purple tissue that floated near the body. Boyd counted six fine limbs attached to the main body, and there was a small head with large eyes. It floated closer and closer.
Boyd raised his pistol. He could feel something inside his head, something telling him to turn the pistol on the man standing next to him. It felt like white noise mixed with the moment before sleep. A distant voice urging him to act. There was only one sound buried in the noise. A name.
Skarak.
Boyd felt his arm rise. He turned and looked at the man next to him. He had no loyalty to these men, but if he were to kill one of them, his position on the Odium Fist would be in jeopardy, and Boyd needed more than anything to remain aboard the Odium Fist.
One of the fighters had raised his own pulse pistol and pressed it to the helmet of the fighter standing next to him.
“No!” Boyd shouted. He reached out and grabbed the man’s arm just as he pulled the trigger.
The pulse round slammed into the helmet, blasting out the visor. Several liters of blood poured out and now floated out into the dark chamber. Boyd felt the urge in his head to take aim at the man who had fired. It burned his eyes, made his teeth clench, and his arm shake. He would happily kill them all, but then Poledri would have an excuse to abandon him.
More than anything, Boyd needed to stay aboard the Fist. He had a job to do. He was highly driven, but this was more than a matter of professional pride. There was a personal reason he had taken this position, and that drove him more than any other consideration.
He could not ruin his chance, not having come this far, gone this deep.
Skarak.
Boyd shook his head. He slapped the side of his helmet.
A pulse round lit up the sphere. Boyd turned to see a second faction fighter dead, his helmet smashed in. The fighter who had fired it turned the pistol toward another fighter, in slow motion, in horror and glee, with a dark, distant look in his eyes and a broad grin on his mouth.
Boyd stared in disbelief as the fighter willfully turned the pistol against his shipmate. And then the helmet was smashed by a pulse round fired by Raye.
Boyd stared open-mouthed at the second-in-command. Pulse rounds lit up the sphere as one fighter after another shot his nearest comrade dead.
Skarak.
Boyd saw Raye turning his pulse pistol slowly, aiming it at him. Raye’s grin, dark and terrible.
Boyd reacted quickly and fired first.
The pulse pistol in his right hand blasted a hole at the hip of Raye’s environment suit. The man crumbled sideways, but still the pulse pistol came back to aim at Boyd’s head.
Boyd fired again as Raye went down, blasting a hole in his chest, and then with his left hand, he fired again, and that pulse round struck Raye’s helmet on the right side spinning his head that way.
But still Raye’s pulse pistol was aimed. Boyd jumped aside, quickly deactivating his suit’s gravity field so he moved quickly and far. A pulse round went by his side as he moved sideways. As Boyd flew toward the breach at the side of the ship, he saw the flicker of pulse rounds as the crew gunned each other down.
Boyd’s leap carried him out onto the asteroid surface. A distant urge in the back of his mind still lingered, telling him to kill those men he’d been with. As he scrambled up the crater rim, the voice in his head became weaker.
Skarak.
It was replaced by the shouting voice of Poledri.
“Report, dammit, report now. What’s going on over there?!”
Boyd glanced back over a shoulder as he scrambled over the edge of the crater. He honestly didn’t know. The crew had turned on each other, turned on themselves. Only Boyd’s utter commitment to his mission had saved him from gunning down those with him. Only clear thinking had allowed him to escape.
“Not sure, Captain,” Boyd said as he leapt again, covering a dozen meters in a single bound. The landing site of the Odium Fist in the distance had never been more welcoming. “Everyone is dead. They are all dead. It’s not right. Something is not right. I don’t know what the ship is, but it’s bad.”
“You’re talking utter gibberish,” Poledri’s voice crackled in Boyd’s helmet. “Tell me what happened.”
Boyd jumped again, his only thought to put as much distance between himself and that crashed ship as possible. He landed heavily, skidding over the dark surface of the asteroid before regaining his feet and jumping again, leaving the ship behind as he raced for the safety of the Fist.
“It’s all on my suit recorder,” Boyd said. “I’m coming back.”
Boyd felt his pulse racing, his heart throbbing. His breathing wild and erratic, steaming up the inside of his helmet faster than the internal environmental controls could clear it away. He raced toward the open hatch of the Odium Fist and fell inside.
Once inside, he slammed the controls for the outer hatch. The boarding ramp retracted, leaving a small ridge of black-and-white asteroid crust. The door slid down slowly. Boyd watched the distant horizon, expecting at any moment for the dead to come after him. With the hatch shut, the pressure began to build in the airlock. Boyd watched the pressure gauge counting up on his helmet display. The pressure was building rapidly, only a few seconds to go. The moment the breathable atmosphere was restored, he pulled off his helmet. Panting and gasping on relatively fresh air, he hammered the controls for the inner hatch and fell inside the Odium Fist. He fell at the feet of Poledri.
“Go, go. We have to go.” Boyd realized he was panicking and fought to control himself.
“Not before you tell me what happened over there.” Poledri grabbed Boyd by the collar and dragged him to his feet.
Poledri shouted and bundled Boyd along the corridor and on to the flight deck. He connected the suit recorder to the holo-stage and played the recording from the beginning, from the moment Boyd had stepped out onto the asteroid’s surface, and then the bodies tumbling forward.
“Zoom in on that figure there,” Poledri said, stepping toward the holo-stage.
The image z
oomed in and showed one of the crazed bodies.
“I recognize that face. That is Captain Mitri of the Bonesaw.” He turned to Noland. “Put out a Faction-wide call. Find out where the Bonesaw is.”
Poledri spun forward through the recording until it showed the interior of the dark ship. He watched from Boyd’s own camera, Boyd own point of view. He saw clearly Boyd draw his weapon and shoot down Raye.
Poledri turned and advanced on Boyd, sending him staggering backward before drawing a pulse pistol off his own hip and pointing it directly at Boyd.
“Do you want to explain yourself, or do you want me to just shoot you right now?”
Boyd fell back and collapsed into Poledri’s command chair. He held his hands up and shook his head.
“He drew on me, he drew first, but I got to say I don’t think he wanted to. Look at them.” Boyd pointed at the frozen image on the holo-stage. “They are all shooting each other. Why did they do that? They were friends. They’ve known each other for years. But I know why I shot Raye. It’s because if I hadn’t, he would have killed me. What’s to say they would not have come back here and killed you?” Boyd fixed Poledri with a stare.
Poledri was shaking with fury, and the pulse pistol quivered in his hand. Boyd focused on the trigger finger and saw it moving, squeezing micro millimeter by micro millimeter, each move a battle within Poledri’s head to kill or not to kill.
“Report from Faction Central,” Noland interrupted. “The Bonesaw was lost out beyond Lastone in the sphere. She had been dodging a Union cruiser when she last reported in, but that was three weeks ago. She’s been reported lost.”
“But I guess we have found her captain,” Poledri said coldly. He holstered his pulse pistol and then grabbed Boyd by the collar, yanking him out of the command chair. “We need to report this to Faction Central. You had best stay off my flight deck for a little while, Boyd.”
Federation at War (Blue Star Marines Book 1) Page 4