MissionSRX: Deep Unknown

by Matthew D. White

  ***

  Halfway around the ship, Sergeant Mason leapt from the rear loading plank of his hovering shuttle. It jetted off just as he cleared to continue on its sortie around the planet-sized ship to deposit Major Othello in a similar method. He felt a sharp gust of air across his suit as the small ship escaped upward and looked around the company of soldiers that had secured the landing site at a twenty-meter perimeter.

  He didn’t see any activity on the surface in either direction, just a long, open area extending deep into the ship undisturbed by the battle. Above his head, the light gray walls and ceiling broke away into the wide, circular hole that reached back to the surface.

  “First squad, on your feet!” he ordered and approached the first set of stairs. “Orders are to secure the ship all the way down to the power plant. The first landing is yours. Go!”

  The sergeant followed the team down and picked up rear guard, rounding out the formation as they drove fast into the uppermost level of the fray. He could see a fair distance down the passage and easily made out the Cygnans dressed in contrasting black armor against the lighter background. They utilized bulkheads and columns on the wall for cover as well as small deployable barricades which looked to have been brought along with them. During the quick battle, the survivors dropped smoke charges and blanked out the hallway thirty meters away to cover their movement.

  His visor attempted to recalibrate itself for a wider spectrum but only delivered a few meters more, showing the aliens as grayish blobs obscured by their billowing concealment. Dropping a burst of rounds at the farthest target he could see, Mason slid back to the doorway to the stairs for cover. From the corner of his vision he watched the blob slide to the ground but keep thrashing around from an obvious non-fatal hit.

  “Sergeant, I can’t see anything through this shit.”

  “That’s not an excuse. Cover fire and move up. I see two on the left, fifteen meters up.” Mason cleanly reported and fired another burst from the corner, dropping the closer Cygnan warrior with a solid barrage to center mass. “Keep the pressure on! Let’s go!”

  34

  Grant pitched a fragmentation grenade off the wall opposite his covered position and charged through the layer of smoke as the remaining aliens took cover from the blast. Heat filled the space even after the searing shards of metal had passed and he took the initiative to clear out another line of their attackers.

  The smoke cleared and he continued running down the empty hallway, seeing a shadow slink off to the side.

  “Commander, five just cut across a side passage about seventy meters down! Look sharp!”

  “I’m on ‘em!” Grant shouted and sprinted down the hall, aiming at the doorway but ready to dive for cover at the sight of any resistance. His ears were ringing to the point that he barely heard the shots.

  He saw a flash reflect around the corner but didn’t see any major movement. There wasn’t time to go for the wall and the small metal blade deflected off the corner of the opposing bulkhead before striking Grant in the abdomen. It put a clean, six centimeter incision clear through his left side. The blade exited without slowing, barely missing his stomach and sent him tumbling to the ground.

  At the initial strike, Grant felt no pain. It dulled only to be followed by a sensation that quickly spread like an icy chill in his veins. A fight immediately broke out inside his brain, with the rational side screaming that it had just been mortally wounded but the other in utter denial. Growling and thrashing on the bloody floor, Grant fought the onset of shock while trying to force himself not to bleed out where he lay.

  There were no other soldiers to be seen and Grant felt frighteningly alone. More smoke poured out from the side hallway, engulfing the passage in more thick, concealing particulate matter. Random gunshots and fires broke out, echoing in the distance.

  He winced in pain as the nerves screamed to life. Grasping with a hand, Grant pulled himself forward, trying to get anywhere than where he was, anywhere to make the pain subside. It pulsed from his side and stabbed at his eyes as he detected a shadow approach through the fog.

  A Cygnan warrior approached from the smoke, its disc-launching rifle hanging loose at its waist, considering the ill-attired human to be incapacitated. Instead, it reached for a polished metal blade sheathed along its body and knelt to cut Grant’s throat. It moved methodically and didn’t expect the Earthling’s lightning reaction.

  As the alien dedicated itself to the movement, Grant ignored the pain and went for his pistol, drawing it with his barely-working arm and emptying the magazine into his attacker’s chest. The assault punched a dozen holes through its armor and sent the creature backwards, collapsing to the deck. From his back, the commander looked up and over his head. With quivering hands, he still traced the sights of the empty weapon outwards, unable to convince himself to move.

  Pulling his concentration back to center, he reloaded while still sprawled on his back. Grant coughed hard from the hit and smoke, blood spraying from his eyes, nose and mouth alongside a fresh hell’s worth of pain searing forth from his abdomen.

  He knew the wound would have to be closed if he didn’t want to lose all his blood. Attempting to minimize his movement he ripped the first aid kit from his belt and dumped the contents on the floor beside him. Fishing blindly through the pile of bandages and basic tools while keeping his eyes and the pistol trained down the hall, he felt and found a wide gauze pad folded amongst the rest.

  Grant took whatever pain surged in his head and set it aside like a kettle that had boiled over. Preparing for another hit, he pulled his shirt aside and wrapped the pad across the surging laceration. He seated it against the flow of blood and continued to dig through the pile of equipment for something to dull the pain.

  In the midst of the bandages, his shaking hand found a banded package of autoinjectors. Without the capacity to discern the painkiller from the rest, he slammed the bundle into his leg, hoping for the best. Four ignited and drove their needles into his quad. The fifth was inverted and punched clear through his misplaced thumb.

  Letting out a primal scream, Grant’s hands went limp and he dropped the pistol as he furiously tried to pull the thick metal barb out of his joint. The pain building beyond unbearable, he grasped the plastic instrument and ripped it free. Convulsing in pain, he wanted nothing more than to die, to leave the unending agony behind.

  From the smoke drifting listlessly through the hallway, another shadow appeared. Grant wanted to reach for his weapon, to stop the threat, but in the moment he no longer cared.

  Major Kael’s form was unmistakable. Deep lacerations surrounded his body, hacked through his armor and spilling a thick coat of blood. The soldier stopped just before Grant’s body and let out a bellowing laugh, bile running from his mouth.

  “Don’t worry!” he exclaimed, “It’s all over. Just let go.”

  Grant’s face twisted from the pain. “No.”

  “Come now, you said it yourself all you want is peace. And the answer is here.” Kael knelt, “Surrender. Capitulate. Embrace the sentence you have so eagerly distributed.”

  The major grinned wider. “Don’t worry. We all die alone.”

  Agonizing pain continued to pulse through Grant’s body. How far gone was he, to be playing out such things? “Never. I will not fail.” He stated simply, willing the vision to fade, hoping the icy, searing sensation would subside.

  Over the following minute, the concoction of opiates flooded his body and dulled the pain so the commander lumbered to his feet, struggling to stand upright on the floor slick with blood. The muscles running from his ribs down to his waist were obviously torn, given the pain and apparent difficulty in keeping his balance. Still, where was everyone?

  That’s right, he remembered, he had gone one floor ahead of the rest of the team to get them moving faster. He had rushed the landing, taken out the two Cygnans that had been standing the closest and then chased two more down the hallway where one more fell and the last one wen
t and hid. From the onslaught of silence about the space, that might have been the last one left alive.

  The commander looked to his feet and saw a bloody mess where he had fallen, along with empty pistol cartridges, soaked medical supplies and the dark blood of the dead Cygnan as it mixed with his own. Too close. He thought, I should have just waited. From among the debris, he fished out his radio which had fallen from his neck and reattached it. Scott’s voice came through clear, dispensing updates every few seconds.

  “Commander, you there? You alive?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “That’s good. I saw you stop moving; what the hell happened?”

  “One of them got me with a glancing shot from the disc gun. It banked one around the corner and I didn’t see it coming.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “Soon but not now. Get a fire team down here to secure the area but that should be all we need. The bleeding’s stopped for now.” Grant knelt once more and ripped the strange weapon free from the alien’s grasp. It resembled a large hunting rifle with a heavy, thick receiver and a folded metallic track for a barrel. On the underside was a sizeable cylindrical box which was filled with more of the metal discs.

  An elegant three-way trigger system stood out from the underside along with several other controls located around the barrel. The lowest one caused a motor to engage and spin the round up to speed while the others appeared to adjust the tracks to shape the round’s movement. Grant continued to turn the various dials and switches until a group of his fellow soldiers swarmed up from behind him and cleared the hallway for another fifty meters forward.

  Refusing to let his body tell him he was injured, Grant shambled methodically back to the stairs and came face-to-face with the second squad in the company. “We’re all set here,” he declared to the group.

  “Yes, sir. Ready for the next floor.”

  “Go for it. You’ve got point.” Grant ordered and half-limping, followed the team down to the next level. Scott reported in with another four targets around the corner before they advanced. The engineer moved up behind them to get an improved signal.

  ***

  “Engines are up. Ready for launch.” Fox called back to the bridge of his host Patriot.

  “Doors are open. Releasing clamps.” Wright returned as Fox felt a jolt beneath his feet. “Cleared hot to depart.”

  “You heard him. Get us out of here.” The commander instructed his pilot, “Guns online. Engage anything in range.”

  Launching the Flagstaff wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan. They had in fact only briefly mentioned it as a contingency. Fox considered the current state to be as much. The Lyrans had been caught unaware and the forces provided by him and Grant were untrained and underpowered, especially since they lost forty percent of their commissioned battle group.

  Additionally it didn’t help that the Cygnans had evidently put the word of the battle out to every ship in range. Every few minutes more appeared out of space and descended on the Lyrans, their capital ship and the human forces. He didn’t know how much their allies were actually fighting. Occasionally one would take a shot or two at a Cygnan vessel but they had taken some serious losses in whatever tactical formation they were attempting to employ. Come to think of it, he didn’t remember seeing anything back during their last visit about their battlefield conduct.

  The human battleship cleared the landing bay and flew forward, away from its carrier. “Get me a target list.” Fox ordered, “Start with whatever’s closest and work your way out. Let’s take some of the pressure off our guys.”

  A miniscule enemy cruiser skimmed past a larger burned-out Patriot and Fox’s operators picked up on the movement. “Start with that one.”

  ***

  Grant’s team cleared another level and the commander continued deeper down into the bowels of the capital ship towards their target. Although it might have all been inside his head, he got the feeling the lights were growing dimmer the farther they went. The walls ceased being rounded, polished and smooth, instead they took on a more industrial appearance, with more removable panels, squared corners and serviceable equipment.

  “Major Scott, how are we doing?” he asked while his soldiers policed up the next group of Cygnan warriors and checked for survivors.

  “There’re only three more floors left to go before you hit the core. Watch out. I’m getting some weird feedback from the walls. I can’t tell what they’re made of.”

  “How so?”

  “The next couple levels look like they’re more open, maybe like observation decks.”

  “I’ll let you know what we find.” Grant bounded down the steps and checked the next corridor but saw no sign of any additional Cygnan defenders. For the first time, he spotted a few dead Lyrans, obviously unarmed technicians with various burns and puncture wounds.

  “We’re clear.” He announced to the team but a jolt from below knocked him from his feet and sent him sailing to his stomach. The lights began to flicker between the standard white and the intermittent red and the blank walls appeared to melt.

  “Scott, what the shit was that?” he demanded.

  “Hold on. Wright just got an update from Omega: they pulled the reactor for the power supply. That’s their target. They want it to…”

  “No science lesson.” The commander cut him off. “If they can’t have it, we’ll stop them. That’s the mission, right?” he watched the walls continue to swirl and finally start to break apart like the dematerializing doors used on the Patriots.

  The walls evaporated into the air, revealing a labyrinth of metal walkways extending far below the formation, down to a skyscraper-sized object floating in the center of a cavernous, cylindrical void. Grant’s eyes darted around, suddenly overpowered by the huge change in available information. He sat stunned for only a second longer before he began to see shadows among the platforms below and around him.

  “Major Ryan, you might want to join me here and see this,” he mentioned while he looked about. To either side, the metal walkways seemed to wrap sideways into the distance, as if the reactor below was their common source of gravity. The commander imagined looking off to the far side and seeing Othello waving back while looking beneath his feet.

  “Why? What?”

  “You were right about the walls. They-.” Grant was cut off as the first round impacted the metal beside him and he rolled up and over for cover, aware of the damage he was doing to himself from the shooting pain the maneuver sent through his side. “They’re all vaporous.”

  “Get down here! Shoot them!” Scott heard him scream while the rest of his team complied and returned fire over the edge.

  The commander got a knee between himself and the floor, sighted down to the closest formation he could see and opened fire, spraying rounds across the metal girders with a shower of following sparks. He cursed as the weapon went dry, dropped it and went for the disc launcher. Now’s the best time to learn. He thought to himself, dropped the lower trigger and followed up with the top.

  The scope showed a small picture of the field of fire, as well as a projected travel path which changed as he adjusted the other settings. By making fine adjustments, he centered the target on one of the aliens half-concealed behind a support and pulled the trigger again. With a sharp snap, the blade was away, covered the space and curved slightly to the right.

  Its path was enough to round the corner and catch the corner of the creature’s throat, sending it flailing up and momentarily spraying blood upon the aliens around it. The commander adjusted and followed with a shot to its stunned companion, putting another blade through the air and hacking through its leg.

  He looked down the walkway and down to the reactor. The rest of the levels were populated with stairs interspaced at regular intervals, but useable space quickly tapered to just a few narrow walkways that wound their way in to encircle the core. Somewhere in his brain an unfortunate notion came through: they were moving too slow.

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sp; The brief idea being all it took to convince him to act, Grant hopped to the top of the guardrail, armed himself with both Aquillian hatchets and let himself fall. He dropped three more stories before extending the pair of weapons to catch a passing floor.

  Neither trailing spike caught a rail or a metal guard but rather drove through another Cygnan as it leaned out to fire back at the humans from below. Both weapons caught its upper thorax deep enough to stop the commander’s descent and slam him hard against the side of the platform to break the fall. Through the agony he pulled himself up with his right arm and dumped the blubbering, mortally wounded creature over the handrail before switching to his pistol and moving forward.

  Two Cygnans faced him after hearing the commotion but Grant’s hand was too quick and he put another eight rounds in the pair to drop them where they stood. He looked down at the one that still twitched, ripped its weapon away and fired a flesh eating round through its chest before taking his attention back to the world below.

  The skyscraper had moved and slid farther aft in the open space. “Scott, I think they’ve released the reactor.”

  “Yeah, I see movement down on top of it. They’re going to open the back of the ship and offload it into their own.”

  “Can the Patriots stop them? At least slow them down?”

  “No.” Scott sighed. “There’s too many of them. If we had a dozen more we might be able to get close enough but Omega is adamant that the reactor not be damaged.”

  The commander kept his comments to himself but continued down the next set of metal stairs. “If that’s what it has to be, we’ll make it happen.” He checked the last corner and ran the rest of the way across the lowest platform to the access stairs to the target.

  Below him, metallic steps wrapped their way around all the way to the reactor and Grant could see multiple groups of Cygnans working at the edge to feed it the device. There was no more cover and no more concealment. He’d be in the open for the rest of the run. Taking a step forward, the ship rumbled again. To his left, the rear of the station opened in a hundred thin spires of metal like a city-sized camera shutter. Outside, dozens of Cygnan battleships floated in wait for their prize.