MissionSRX: Deep Unknown

by Matthew D. White

  “This is Commander Prime Grant. Who’s there?”

  Beside him, the operations officer typed the message into a text protocol terminal. Lines of alien code appeared above and below the English statement. Another line quickly appeared before being routed through the bridge processor.

  Most excellent. The voice began. This is Lyran command. We have come under assault. The urgency of the message was incongruent with the speed and inflection by which it was read.

  “What happened? What do you need?”

  The Cygnans have attacked us earlier than anticipated. We can barely hold them off with the aid of our automated defenses.

  “You can’t defend yourselves? Not even now?”

  There was a pause. We cannot.

  “What can we do?”

  The Cygnans have chosen our capital ship as their primary target. We have logged multiple landings on the main body near the power plant but we are unable to engage them. You must dislodge them at any cost.

  Grant and Fox shared a glance and looked around the room as the other two Patriots shot into view to either side. “Can do. Give us somewhere to land and we’ll be there. Where’s Omega?”

  Coordinates have been passed to your ship. Another brief pause. I am here.

  Three specks of light illuminated on the main display towards the rear of the immense capital ship. With every point plotted on the extensive fuselage of their target, they nearly appeared collocated.

  The commander looked at the screen as the operator zoomed in on the view. They had three landing zones buried deep within the ship at the ends of a series of long, twisting access channels. He pointed at the pilot. “We can fit shuttles down there, right?”

  “Absolutely. The tracks are bigger than they look.”

  “Get the Patriots as close as you can. We’ll each take a landing zone. Mobilize ALL of the ground forces; get them loaded up. Warm up the shuttles.” Grant looked between Mason, Scott and Othello. “You’re my squad leaders. I’ll cover your approach and meet you on the ground. Let’s move.”

  ***

  The group bounded from the Patriot’s command deck and split for their equipment. Grant went straight for the auxiliary armory on the top deck of the Flagstaff where he had his weapons ready and waiting. By using the Lyran trams, he estimated to be ready in less than ten minutes.

  The first platform took him to the landing deck where he switched and boarded another. It extended all the way from the rear wall of the landing bay to the end of the loading platform. Grant looked across the landing bay as he entered, watching as the large teams of soldiers ran in every direction to adjust to the change in circumstances. As he had hoped, the order had filtered all the way to the human ship as well. He quietly wished it wouldn’t be necessary.

  “Chief, I hope we’re ready to fly.” He radioed ahead to his lead maintainer.

  “Absolutely, sir. All we’re waiting on is you.”

  “Excellent. I’m heading to the armory and then I’ll be out your way.”

  Grant launched himself up the set of stairs to the command level and rounded the door to the small storage facility to find an awful mess. Three soldiers surrounded a workbench containing a thousand incomplete pieces of red metal. His armor. The armorers came to attention as he entered.

  “What the shit is this?” he demanded, pointing at the table. “Please don’t tell me that’s all mine.”

  “Yes sir, it is.” The first responded weakly. “When it arrived it was coded for full deconstruction and cleaning.”

  “I haven’t used it for a week. Why did it need to be cleaned?” the commander slammed his fist on the table, rattling the box of components, “We’re under attack! I’m about to launch! Why did you take it apart now?”

  “I’m sorry sir. We started reassembly as soon as the order came down. We’ll have it ready in an hour or so if you can wait.”

  Grant fumed and looked between the soldiers and then around the room. Weapons were plentiful and his private locker was untouched. The support rigs normally fitted for armor storage were already picked clean. He glanced to his feet. Black shined leather boots, Ripstop pants and black shirt. He went for his weapons.

  “We don’t have time for bullshit like this. Keep working. The second you’re done, you will find me and you will personally see it delivered! Do I make myself clear?” The commander ordered while clamping an ammunition belt around his waist and shoulders. He overloaded every pocket and slot with ZiG, M-14 and pistol magazines before pulling his three milled steel instruments free and strapping them on in like fashion.

  On his way out, Grant picked up a pair of goggles to protect his eyes from whatever likely radiation was present around the ship. “You monkeys had better be quicker than you look, for all of your sakes.” He growled and sprinted back into the hallway, his footsteps echoing for a full kilometer in every direction.

  The commander ran the way he had come and vaulted down the steps back to the main landing bay where Chief Robins was standing at the ready beside his idling fighter. His visage quickly turned to one of concern as he interpreted how Grant was attired.

  “Sir, your armor?”

  “Stripped for maintenance.”

  “But wh…”

  “All spoken for.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yup.”

  “This’s beyond insanity.”

  “Just a little.”

  “Well,” Robins stopped the commander at the foot of the access ladder. “At least take this.” he pulled the universal radio from around his neck and passed it over. “You’ll need this regardless.”

  Grant accepted the small coil of metal. “Thanks. I’ll bring her back before you know it.” He said and climbed the familiar narrow rungs and slid into his seat with the rifles clamped down beside the glass.

  “Lieutenant Wright, you there?” Grant radioed out while running through the last of his preflight checks.

  “Yes sir.”

  “How’re we looking?”

  “Ready to launch on your mark.”

  “Copy. Drop the bay doors and I’ll be able to provide support.”

  “Opening. We just took down our third cruiser.”

  “Gold star to you. I’m in the air.” He announced, added fuel to the engines and accelerated hard out of the Flagstaff into the larger cage of the Patriot. Far down at the end, the wall split and Grant sailed through the sliver of black space between the pair of facing doors.

  Beyond the safety of the Patriot’s bay, both Lyran and Cygnan ships burned in every direction. Evidently their allies could defend themselves at a rudimentary level. Turning back, the capital ship filled his view to the point of feeling in low orbit around a planet or of a toy rocket that was being pressed against his face.

  More jarring were the ships that smoldered between them, mere blips of light against an infinite, unreachable backdrop. The commander soared by the closest ones, the cruisers destroyed by the Patriots, and waited for his shuttles.

  “What are you hearing from the Lyrans?”

  “They asked about the missing ships but I just told them they were lost in combat. I figured technical details would be better left to you.”

  “Good. I’ll take care of that.” Grant responded and felt his organs press against the back of his seat. Even with the gravitational compensation the lack of a pressurized suit was already tearing at his body. “Where are they coming from?” he managed as with each breath the air kept being sucked from his lungs.

  “They described the Cygnans as descending on the base from all directions. They don’t have a point of origin.”

  “This doesn’t look like enough to destroy everything.”

  “No. Omega reports them going for the power plant on the big one. The rest of the targets were by opportunity. Four shuttles are free.”

  Grant saw the tags appear on his already saturated scope. At their range, they’d spend maybe two minutes in the sky. He switched the radio over. “We’ve got the top run i
n. Get your speed up so we can get on the ground.”

  Ahead, in the space to the side of the capital ship, the stars flickered and appeared to move as if painted upon a rapidly inflating balloon. Instantly drawing the commander’s attention, he pivoted towards the disturbance. “I think I might have something out here.” He relayed back to the Patriot.

  From the misty bubble another Cygnan ship appeared, birthed from the darkness. “Arrival confirmed. Moving to intercept.” He continued and closed the distance on the ship before the system could calculate a proper identification. “Keep the shuttles out of range. Get towards the landing point.”

  “Commander, that’s one of their suppression frigates. It’s got enough firepower to take down a Patriot.” Wright advised, instantly recognizing the facing craft. “Watch your distance.”

  “You just said it has no defenses and can’t hit anything that moves fast.” Grant kicked up his thrust and dove at the ship in a tight corkscrew as his protection systems blared warnings of incoming fire.

  The move brought him increasingly closer as waves of both guided and unguided munitions blazed past his titanium coffin, unable to catch or fuse on his miniscule signature. Lines of searing tracer rounds sliced through space before him and raked the sky clear, unable to scrape the commander with a single shot. Even though one solid hit would have been enough to kill him off, the guns responded far too slow to tag the wildly maneuvering fighter.

  Grant responded with a line of high-energy rounds driven across the vessel’s fuselage, quickly overpowering its minimal shields while it attempted to track his movement. He cut through its shield and swung down to the surface, peppering every protrusion with additional fire. “Wright, I’ve got this thing occupied. Engage for effect.”

  “Copy that. Get yourself clear. We’ve got it lined up.”

  “Moving. Open fire.” The commander tracked close to the hull to finish his run but cut hard to the side as the first round of shots from the Patriot’s deck splashed into the surface, giving him the feeling of flying a fighter at a hundred meters while concurrently dodging munitions from a squadron of high-altitude bombers. The final round slammed home right off his nose, sending a plume of smoke up large enough to swallow his ship whole. He felt the blinding flash and glare against his face, dropped the throttles and drove straight though the ensuing fireball.

  It cleared quickly to black after a millisecond of smoke obscured all visual details, with their all-seeing capital ship stamped against the backdrop. Grant cursed, narrowly missing a final protrusion from the skin of the vessel as he slipped beyond the hull into open space. With a quick jerk, he arced back for a follow-up run. “Damage report. That was close.”

  “We’re engaging. Recommend final run on dark side.”

  More rounds slammed against the alien ship as Grant vectored clear and burned back around toward its underside. No shields, no friendly fire and utterly defenseless, he dove in sharp again and punched in another line of explosive shells.

  “That’s it!” Wright announced, “It just lost power. We’ll hit it again. Continue to your objective.”

  “Concur.” Grant responded and turned again to cage his sights on the small formation of landing vehicles. At only fractional power, he overtook them and flew hard and fast towards their landing site.

  Tapping the engines, he added to the SR-X’s momentum and rocked it in a high arc to take a straight shot into the capital ship’s service passage. Instantly Grant was stunned by the intricacy of his surroundings, as if an entire city from Earth had been ripped free from the ground and rolled into a tube, with thousands of buildings attached to every interior surface, extending their landing platforms inward to catch passersby.

  He sailed farther down unhindered by nothing except for a brilliant, burning light of creation emanating from every window, light and fire along the way. He wished he could stop and marvel at the Lyran craftsmanship but knew now was not the time. Hopefully Scott wasn’t looking out the window or he’d never make to battle. Grant smiled at the thought then steadied himself.

  The landing zone below was a wide thoroughfare that resembled an extensive highway that ran through the superstructure of the starship. Grant swung across the open space and streaked around in a wide patrol looking for any dispersed Cygnan forces on the ground. While on the hunt, he simultaneously felt as insignificant as an insect exploring a sports stadium.

  Running long and straight out to infinity, the highway created the feeling of being outdoors on a clear day, aside from rows of gargantuan pillars holding the ceiling aloft high above his head. The metal glowed as if reflecting sunlight deep inside the ship, but it was clear the source was buried unseen, far and away.

  “It’s clear on top. What are we looking for?”

  “Omega says you’ll need to get off the road. There’s a lower level with smaller passages that they’ve taken over. The Cygnans landed aft, closer to the power plant so you’ll need to push them back off the ship.”

  Keeping an eye open for more of the invaders, Grant checked over the ground. There were multiple low structures that flanked the roads and appeared to be entrances to the corridors beneath. The shuttle pilots identified them similarly and dropped their ships right outside.

  Grant slammed his fighter down hard as the rest of the team filtered out of their rides. Cracking the seal of the canopy, he stood and tested the air. In only a few seconds, he felt his fingertips tingle from a higher oxygen concentration but otherwise nothing dangerous. Far from the familiar smells of the Flagstaff and less of the Patriots, the atmosphere nearly took on the scent of a…thunderstorm? It was strange but also the only way he could explain it in his head.

  Grabbing his weapons and hopping to the ground, he immediately spotted Scott pulling a full-size multispectral scanner out of the shuttle along with him. “Good thinking. You’re on the ball for SA.”

  “Of course. I don’t have a clue what we’re walking into.” Scott looked up and scanned across the commander’s attire. “You don’t look ready to brief the attack, much less lead it.”

  “Don’t, don’t you start too.” Grant grumbled, “Why would those dipshits take my damn armor apart ten minutes before we need to land?”

  Scott shook his head. “Well keep your cranium down.” He switched the scanner on. “Second level below us runs parallel to this one and has a few more passages to go deeper. At the first landing you’ve got twelve signatures within twenty meters of this stairwell.”

  “Good to know.” Grant rallied the company together, “First squad up. Breach the door and secure the next landing down. Major Scott, let’s see it.” The soldiers took a quick look at the schematic, enough to pull a mental picture of the layout below and breached the door.

  Scott and Grant watched the movement progress on the scanner as their forces snaked down the stairwell, piled into the lower hallway and tore into the few unlucky defenders who didn’t see the attack approach. The sounds of gunfire echoed up the confined entrance.

  “Is that loud?” Scott asked the commander, tapping the side of his helmet.

  “A little but it’s not too bad.”

  “I might be more concerned about the gas rounds. If they have any that go off near you, you’ll be done.”

  Grant considered the statement. “Next time, just leave your comments to yourself.” He adjusted the equipment strapped around his waist. “Looks clear. Let’s move on. I want a squad in each hallway. We’ll clear them out all the way to the core.”

  Entering the wide doorway for himself and marching down the deep, wide and steep stairs, the commander couldn’t help but notice how familiar and yet how alien it all seemed. He knew the surfaces were metal. They’d have to be, yet with every step he didn’t hear a clang and barely a deadened echo. He saw no etching or indentations for traction against the treads. They appeared closer to marble than steel but he found every footstep secure without any sort of equally unpleasant stickiness.

  The surfaces were clean, to the p
oint of being unused and had the feeling like they were rampaging through a freshly-renovated skyscraper or a new house a day before the paint dried. The air of cleanliness added to a surreal sense of serenity that extended all the way to the highway upstairs.

  A floor below the visage inverted. Three human soldiers didn’t make it a step off the landing before falling prey to the first wave of Cygnan fire. While two suits of armor were face down, obviously leaking the familiar bloody ooze, the last had fallen against the closest wall with a sharpened saw blade driven through his visor and halfway through his skull.

  Although the smoke obscured the hallway in a few meters in either direction, the first of the Cygnans had been dropped where they stood on guard. Grant immediately noticed the finer points of the skirmish: the burn on the ground where the flash had ignited, the empty magazines on both sides plus the random bullet holes around the targets.

  Thin scratches danced along the walls, likely left from the blades that had missed. He didn’t see the weapon among the Cygnan corpses so the commander defaulted to the worst case that it was still in the field.

  “Major Scott, how are we looking?”

  “You’re clear for two hundred meters aft but there’re still fourteen more floors before it opens up to the core.”

  “What’s the layout?”

  “It’s like a grid. There are facilities between the halls but I can’t tell what’s in them; most are empty. The gravity field is really interesting.”

  “Why’s that?” Grant asked while sighting down the corridor and attempting to see through the smoke.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s pulling straight to the center of the ship, like our guys will be going down stairs regardless of where they started from.”

  “You can ponder that all you’d like and get back to me but we’re a little busy down here.” Grant replied and got back to his feet. He looked between the soldiers, several taking his lead and covering the hallway and stairs. “I want a three-man fire team to drop and maintain security on every floor. Once we’re all the way down we’ll push them back.”