MissionSRX: Deep Unknown

by Matthew D. White

  “That’s insane…”

  “Here they come!”

  Othello watched a thin sliver of light in the darkness grow into four distinct signatures as the flight of ships arced across the space between and vector towards the Patriot’s landing bay. “What the hell? Close the damn doors!”

  “No, hold on.” Clark watched the approach on his scope, his hand wavering a millimeter above the shield controls. Over Othello’s judgment, he waited until the signal return was nearly on top of the Patriot’s at the center and touched the surface.

  Down in the bay, the four alien ships grew to fill the space outside just as the field activated and the wall re-formed right in front of them. The closest was already inside the bay and the surge of energy sliced the trailing third of its hull clean off. The forward portion burst into flames from the engine breach and tumbled down the ramp, throwing off bits of shredded material in every direction and driving hard into the wall below.

  Over the din below, Othello heard the rest impact the hull of the Patriot and between the rumble under his feet and the glow from the isolated leading windows, judged they didn’t make it out alive.

  “You got them but cut the first one in half. It’s in here with us,” he radioed to the commanding officer.

  “Let it burn out and neutralize any survivors. Don’t get close unless you need to,” Clark said, leaning back and watching the security feed from outside. The skin of the Patriot and the virtual barrier were enough to take out the Cygnan shuttles. He knew they were strong, but this he didn’t expect.

  Beyond that, what had he just witnessed? For whatever reason the boarding teams ignored the Patriots until it was obvious they were unprotected. It was an interesting tactic that he decided to investigate further when the time came. A bright flash of light outside broke his concentration.

  “Tower two is down,” Lieutenant Rans’ higher voice was unmistakable. “I’m tracking the debris field, but I don’t see anything moving on its own.”

  “Copy. Was there another ship parked inside?” Wright confirmed.

  “Possibly. There’s nothing there now. We hit within ten degrees of apex and took the shot from top to bottom.”

  “Nothing survived?”

  “Correct. We took a quarter of the asteroid out with it.” Rans watched the growing spatter of rocky bits spread out on her screen.

  Clark listened in on the exchange, since he’d still likely be the one to report to the fleet commander. The Cygnans’ tactics were strange to him. They were loaded up and ready to go on the offensive. They likely knew the humans were approaching yet couldn’t assemble an effective response.

  Outside, the last alien battleship took a line of shots across the side of the hull and sheared in half, spreading a plume of rich smoke and fire in a graceful arc as it floated off the line. The smaller ships didn’t have a chance to take on a Patriot. Even a unified strike would likely be ineffective. Their fighting and boarding strategies had demonstrated they likely knew that.

  They gave a concentrated front when they could and struck the weaker links when they couldn’t but still they didn’t retreat. Maybe that was their twisted code. Maybe they somehow still did retain a plan and a prayer. Or maybe they knew they were doomed from the second the first Patriot left Elysium.

  ***

  “God-seriously-damn-it!” Fox’s voice came in at last through a thick wall of static.

  “Sir, what happened?” Clark beat Wright to the response.

  “Flagstaff is secure. We had the last eight members of their boarding team back themselves into my effing briefing room. SOF responded with a breaching team, but they fought to the last man, then blew a charge and killed the first four of us through the door. Casualties for the ship are at forty-four and climbing.”

  “Do you need my medical staff?”

  “No, we don’t have many wounded. The rest of the clinic here should be able to take care of us. How are things in your direction?”

  “Their casualties are upwards of eighty percent without any losses on our side.”

  “Good. Keep at it for a couple minutes while I get things cleaned up over here.”

  ***

  “Mr. Ryan!” Carter shook Scott at the shoulders and pulled back the engineer’s face shield. The sudden blast of fresh-ish air was enough of a shock to charge him back to consciousness and his eyes flickered open.

  It took a second for his mind to reset. Acting automatically, Scott listlessly waved an arm up and Carter used it to pull the man up and seat him against the wall. What just happened?

  The last thing he remembered was the team lining up at the door to the briefing room. They went to move in, Scott took one step towards the door, and…that was it. He woke up on the ground. His eyes darted around before coming to meet the lieutenant who was kneeling across from him only a meter away.

  “You okay?” he asked with a look of anguish and concern on his face. “Can you focus on me? You took a good hit.”

  “I…I think so,” Scott managed. “What happened?”

  “The bastards were sitting on a bomb. They were set to defend, but once we entered they blew the room. First four guys in got cooked.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Right ahead of you in the doorway. My head’s still spinning too. Don’t worry; we’ll get the doc to check you out and make sure you’re good to go.”

  Scott rested his head back against the cold metal wall. His head pounded, his ears bled and he couldn’t feel any of his extremities. Whatever was still going on, he was ready for the fleet to wrap up their assault so he could enjoy a few hours of quiet.

  15

  “No. It’s dead.”

  “Check it again.” Rans looked at the breakdown from the remaining target sent over from her lead gunner. It was listed as a Cygnan cruiser but hadn’t ruptured after taking a number of direct strikes.

  “Cleared the cache and rescanned. The shot hit the engines and likely life support. It’s leaking atmosphere but there’s no uncontrolled rupture.”

  “Standby. I’ll report it to the fleet,” she replied and switched channels. “Wright, I’m down to the last cruiser. We hit it when it tried to run but didn’t get a clean kill. Engines and life support are estimated disabled. Where do you want us next?”

  Wright looked across his screens. Most of the fleet was already wrapped up. “Which model was it?”

  “Cruiser, about one fifth the estimated mass of the Flagstaff and with a standard configuration.”

  “Hold on.” He scanned farther. “I’ve got a request from the ground forces to get a clean scan from inside one of those ships. Let me see if it’s still valid.” Wright switched channels again to the defense force. “Major Kael, Do you still want to run an intelligence gathering mission? Rans tagged a lone cruiser but it didn’t blow.”

  There was a sizeable delay as the signal passed through multiple relays crossing the battlespace. “You can get us to one? Yes! Absolutely! The Lyrans wanted any intelligence we could gather. They gave us a couple scanning suites if we got the chance.”

  “Understood. Lieutenant Commander Clark will scramble a shuttle for you and your equipment. I’ll get you an escort. Anything else?”

  ***

  Attempting to escape the grim work taking place in front of him, Scott had shuffled his way around the blown-out door to the bridge but hadn’t made it much farther. It was slightly more peaceful, with only two officers working the deck while the rest cleaned up the mess outside. He dropped to the floor, taking the seat along the rear wall once more.

  Hundreds of bullet and shrapnel holes punctured the walls, ceilings and floors all around him, curling edges of the metal into jagged Mandelbrot formations and flaking the nearby paint away to reveal the bare surface beneath. Light wasn’t passing through them so he doubted they damaged both sides. Their commander must have known that and had been hoping for suppression only.

  The command console was in rough shape as well. Multiple alien proj
ectiles as well as random grenade fragments pock-marked the surface Fox had been using as cover and the ground a meter away was slick with blood from the body they had just removed. When he first saw it, Scott almost thought the man had been shot in the back while retreating but the others quickly set him straight. If the Cygnans had blown the door off, obviously there’d be no one escaping through it.

  He heard some distant chatter over the radios before Carter walked in and dropped a severed Cygnan head in his lap.

  “Aw, what the hell?” he sputtered and pushed the leathery object away; avoiding the thick black streak it transferred to the floor.

  “Boo! Time to wake up. They’re not done with us yet.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Can you work a Lyran multispectral scanner?”

  Scott’s brain methodically put the words together one at a time. A multispectral scanner; yes, the Lyran scientists had showed him some. They were about the size of a storage trunk or large foot locker and had a few control panels on top. They also had developed smaller short-range versions for dismount use. He was hazy when they explained the details of it, but they did give him the rundown of basic operations. “Yeah, I think so. Why?”

  “One of the other ground teams has one and they want to use it on a disabled cruiser.”

  “That sounds really dangerous.”

  “Yup, and that’s why they called us. Come on, the shuttle is already warming up.”

  The engineer shoved his fear aside and used his rifle to push himself to his feet. Commander Grant wouldn’t sit something like this out; neither would he. “Alright, I’m ready,” he replied, taking a deep breath. “Let’s roll.”

  “You mean fly,” Carter added and handed him a large black object, “You might want to experiment with this too.” Scott hesitantly took a step back. “It’s okay. You earned it.”

  Scott recognized the weapon of the alien he had taken down in the hallway. It was longer and heavier than the smaller arms that the rest carried, with semi-squared off sides covered with etched runes that resembled Damascus milling. He accepted it and turned it around in his hand while they walked towards the upper landing bay.

  There were several indentations to indicate hand placement and multiple control pads and buttons around each one. He suspected the weapon fired the small, polished black projectiles, but it was too early to say for sure. He hoped he wouldn’t need to find out.

  When they got to the landing bay, Scott could see Commander Grant’s bright red ship slowly making circles outside, along with a half-dozen other fighters of darker color following him.

  “Hurry, our escort’s already here,” Carter called out, bounding back up the shuttle’s loading plank.

  “Where do we get the scanner?” Scott asked as the rest of the team followed him inside.

  “We’re not handling that,” Carter said and rapped on the bulkhead, shouting at the pilot, “All aboard! Let’s go!” He turned back. “Major Kael has the box and will meet us on the ground. He’s deploying from Rans’ ship with a few squads of his own to support us.”

  Scott nodded and braced himself against the side of the shuttle once more, trying to remember anything the Lyrans had mentioned about their scanning system. The shuttle roared to life and with a jolt broke free from the gravitational field within the Flagstaff before rocketing out into the dark.

  ***

  “Keep away from their fleet,” Grant advised the shuttle when it was clear of the battleship. “They’ve only got nine operational cruisers left but could still launch interceptors,” He added and let the formation of fighters hang back from the shuttle and cut the distance between them and the Cygnan ships in half. If all went well, even if they did try to launch anything he hoped he’d see them early enough.

  As they approached, Rans’ Patriot came into focus in the distance. A flash of light burst from the front when the shields dropped and the accompanying shuttle flew out to meet them.

  “Any idea how we’re gonna land on this thing?” one of the shuttle pilots asked. “They’re not just going to open the door when we come knocking.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Grant responded. “From what I’ve seen so far they have small landing bays on the upper decks. I’ll get in close, crack one open and you can follow me in.”

  When the formation was clear of the alien fleet, the commander broke away and took a far lead. “I think we’ve got a way in. The starboard deck looks pretty beat up already. It’s missing the forward door and the second is swinging free. I’m not detecting any auxiliary shields either.”

  Grant cut his speed and locked onto the remaining bay door. “Engaging to clear it out.” In quick succession he fired off a trio of guided missiles, striking the remaining supports of the metal sheath. He still saw no response while the structure wrenched itself free and floated away from the disfigured vessel.

  “You’re all clear!” he announced and watched the pair of shuttles slide into position, swinging about and dropping plank-first in tandem on the deck.

  ***

  Major Kael was the first down the ramp and led his team out from beneath the shadow of the shuttle to secure the right side of the room. Lieutenant Carter likewise drove his squad of special operators to the left, keeping Scott close to his side.

  The engineer looked about the room as they entered, still trying to remember how to operate the scanner on top of staying alive in combat. The entire space was nearly dark, with long stripes of red light pouring from unseen fixtures above. The floor wasn’t metallic; in the gloom it looked closer to an epoxy coating or textured plaster.

  The entire room was surprisingly still, Scott thought, wasn’t this ship part of an invasion force a few hours ago? Didn’t they just launch shuttles from here to attack the Flagstaff? Shouldn’t there have been dozens if not hundreds of aliens swarming about?

  There was some particulate matter and smoke that hung heavy in air. They must have had some sort of barrier shield still operational to hold what remained of atmosphere in place.

  “We’re clear!” Kael called out from the right. “Mr. Ryan, you with us?”

  “Yes, sir!” he replied and jogged to the center where the major rallied with the strange alien trunk retrieved from the shuttle by two supporting soldiers.

  “Good to see you’re still breathing. Do you think you can get something useful out of this?” Kael asked, gesturing at the case.

  “I hope so,” Scott murmured while he lifted the top cover and stared at his hands as they hovered above the controls. Each button had a few English characters scrawled in at the last minute by the alien scientists so it was somewhat legible. He pushed a large key to the side and the wide screen went black and then filled with a dim outline of the entire ship.

  “That’s it; it’s running!” he announced to the others as he watched the picture slowly fill in more details of the passages and rooms nearby. Aside from simply mapping everything around them, according to the Lyrans that designed it, it would also sample any sort of radiated energy encountered as well. So far he didn’t know how to get that kind of feedback while it was still operating.

  He watched the screen. “It looks like it needs about eight more minutes to run.”

  “Okay,” Carter said from his position to the left. “Let’s do this quickly and get out. This gives me the gaddamn creeps. Where the hell are they?”

  Smoke hung low in the air from Grant’s missile strike to clear the doors while a low rumble from the shuttles’ engines echoed around the chamber. Mason knew the lieutenant was right while he waited on a knee at the front.

  “Can you take a look at this?” Scott called to Kael. “I might have an answer for you.”

  Kael looked down at the screen, now filled with a much more detailed diagram of the ship. From what he could see, the landing bay they were currently occupying was about one-third of the width of the vessel, with a central wall of supporting facilities down the middle and a similar bay on the far side. While he
waited, the system added the shuttles and could make out the soldiers on the ground, marking them with small red tags.

  “What am I seeing?”

  “All of this,” Scott pointed to a mass of red blobs spread around the far bay. “It’s sensing movement. I think that’s their crew.”

  Kael stared at the screen. He waited until he saw a small cluster of dots move closer to the entrance on the right-rear corner of the room. “That’s it. They’re moving in!” he turned and dashed back towards the line of his soldiers. “Heads up! They’re on their way!” He paused. “Scott, how long do we have?”

  “Maybe twenty seconds!”’

  “Better idea,” Kael announced. “Move up and stack on the corner door! Breach in fifteen!”

  Mason leapt to his feet and bolted for the wall along with the rest of the squad. He slid into position while Kael took the front and slapped a small shaped mine onto the center of the armored door. It was a decent, if brazen, idea. Trying to meet the enemy head on might catch them off-guard, especially if they were already moving or expecting to engage their invaders inside the bay.

  “They’re about three meters down the hallway opposite the hatch,” Scott added from the monitor.

  “Time to go,” Kael advised. “Door out!” he added and hit the control for the mine. In a deafening explosion the airlock ripped clear off its hinges and blasted into the passage beyond.

  The major rounded the edge and raked a line of bullets from wall to wall. Stunned Cygnan soldiers scrambled to get back to their feet in the aftermath of the preemptive attack and formed back up to reengage. Two paces back, Mason followed along, picking out targets through the thick smoke and dim light.

  Muzzle flashes from both sides cast dark shadows in every direction and the sergeant quickly overtook two Cygnans that dove for cover to the right. From the corner of his eye, he saw Major Kael stumble and drop to his knees, his head bent far forward.