by Jason Kent
"Too late!"
"Hang tight, we're on our way! Merrick out!"
Ross jammed the radio back into its pouch. "Calvary's on the way."
"Great," Sparrow muttered. She clenched her fists and knocked them together. Two mechs skidded across the deck and crashed into one other. Sparrow paused as she turned her attention to the last mech. She was breathing hard when she asked, "You want this one?"
"Nope, you're doing great!"
"Call it a bonus from my upgrade and reboot," Sparrow explained as she made a fist. The final machine was crushed with seemingly no effort. She knew it looked easy on the outside, but her body was screaming at her. Arms, legs, chest, hands...everything hurt. Sparrow dropped her arms to her side and slumped against Ross, exhausted.
"You okay?" Ross asked, looking at Sparrow in concern.
She managed a nod before taking a deep breath. "Will be..." Movement to her left caught her attention. She amped up the magnification of her augmented vision to make out what was happening in the dim recesses of the hold. Ross had seen the same thing, but without artificial eyesight, he would be unable to make out much detail.
"What's the black goo coming out of your new friends?" Ross asked. He pointed his weapon at one of the recently dead mechs.
"Not sure," Sparrow replied.
"Best guess?"
"Nanites. Small robots able to lay dormant for long periods of time. They must have activated and then reanimated the mechs." She watched with her special vision as the streams of tiny robots made their way to the Legionnaire corpses scattered around them. "Uh, Ross..."
"Yeah, I see 'em," the marine grunted. He heaved the tablet into Sparrow's arms and gripped the assault rifle laying across his chest and pulled his spare off his back.
All around them, frozen bodies cracked and snapped as the nanites forced the frozen bodies to do their will. A few of the dead legionnaires still had rifles frozen in their grips. Sparrow was too weak to sense if the weapons were functional after all this time in the deep freeze of the hold.
"I don't have the strength to deal with them!" Sparrow warned.
"You won't have to," Ross responded coolly.
"Did you feel that?" Garrett asked as he glanced out the cockpit window. The stark terrain of Seiklus' hull appeared to not have changed.
Dagger pushed herself up from Garrett's lap and pulled him out of her seat. "Move it, flyboy." She tapped on the control board, muttering, "Probably just a fuel pump kicking in..."
"You don't sound very convinced," Garrett remarked. He leaned forward to get a better view of their surroundings.
"It didn't feel like a fuel pump," Dagger admitted, keeping her focus on the board as she checked each of Blade's systems.
A loud scrape sounded from beneath the cockpit floor.
Dagger and Garrett's eyes met. Dagger's narrowed while Garrett's went wide.
"Oh tral," Garrett said. He dropped into the co-pilot's seat and began the engine start-up sequence. "Something's trying to break through our hull!" The marine glanced over at Dagger as he pulled on his seat restraints. "Ready to detach!?" He found Dagger flipping a knife, one-handed, while craning her neck in an attempt to get a better look down the side of her ship.
"One sec..." Dagger said smoothly.
Garrett opened his mouth then snapped it shut as Dagger flipped her knife again. She caught it neatly without looking. The tightly wound muscles of Dagger's entire body radiated danger. The corner of Garrett's mouth twitched up in a grin.
The metallic scratching stopped. Whether the intruder had given up or the sound was being drowned out by the rising noise coming from the engines, Garrett could not be sure.
"Go?" Garrett asked. He had his hands on the controls, ready to blast away from the ironclad's hull at a moment's notice.
Flip. Dagger did not respond. Instead, the hand without the knife slid over the weapons board.
Garrett watched as she brought the rail guns on-line. The whine of the engines rose and filled the cockpit but still Dagger waited, her hand hovering over the fire button.
Flip.
Tral, Garrett thought. Were they going to wait for it to cut through the hull? He glanced down nervously at the deck and wondered if maybe he should grab pressure suits. Just in case...
Flip.
Something scraped against the armor just below the cockpit window.
Dagger began to flip her knife again but didn't make it through half a turn before the attacker jumped up and nearly blocked the entire cockpit windshield.
"CRAP!" Garrett shouted and pulled back on the controls. Blade rocketed away from the ironclad's hull. The move failed to dislodge the machine holding firmly onto Blade's leading edges.
In the part of his mind which had been honed from years of combat flying, Garrett categorized the attacker as a Tallinn mech. It was an older model, but the components matched well enough to the images in Garrett's memory to make a positive identification. He took in the mech's weapons with a glance. He especially didn't like the look of the shoulder-mounted cannon pointed right at Dagger or the six-barrel machine gun aimed directly at his face. Garrett knew the reinforced windshield should protect him from the machine gun, but it was still unnerving to have such a large weapon ready to kill you. The cannon...well, he wasn't so sure about the cockpit window's ability to stop that.
Dagger completed the knife flip and growled, "Wrong ship, mech-head." She jabbed the firing stud under her hand. The rail guns thumped under their feet. Outside, accelerated slugs smashed into the bottom of the mech, tearing it free from Blade.
The cannon blossomed, soundless in the vacuum of space, as the mech disintegrated from a second round of hyper-velocity rail slugs. There was no time for Garrett to maneuver away from the shot.
The mech's round glanced off the cockpit window leaving a jagged white crack.
A third round from Blade's rails tore through the remains of the mech, spreading them even farther into open space.
Garrett let out his breath. "Looks like some of the ship's mechs are still functional," he said as nonchalantly as he could manage.
Flip.
He looked over at Dagger as she sheathed the knife. She was grinning madly at the spider-web of lines etched in the windshield. She looked at Garrett.
"Well, that could have been a disaster."
Chapter 21
Seiklus' Past
Kate followed Merrick as he barreled down the dark corridors of the ironclad toward the cargo hold. The starship had several levels and Kate was not sure how many decks they would need to descend in order to get to Ross and Sparrow. They were passing through crew quarters now. Most of the doors were closed, but a few stood open, revealing sleeping pods and desks with antique-looking keyboards sitting quietly under bulky monitors. Each room also had an emergency pressure suit hanging in an alcove. The suits were equipped with heavy helmets, wide belts, and massive backpacks loaded with gleaming tanks and brass fittings. Everything about the old Tallinn suits screamed 'deep sea diver' to Kate. As she pondered the unused suits, a schematic of the ironclad popped into Kate's mind. She had studied the information they could find on the Seiklus, but not in this detail.
"Thanks, Nemus," Kate breathed as her mind's eye focused in on their location within the massive vessel. Nemus, for all his petulant teen antics, came through for Kate when she really needed him. Quickly tracing their path from the bridge near the leading edge of the rotating hub of the starship and through the crew quarters, Kate found the large cargo compartments. They took up a good portion of the rim with the closest access two decks below. From her previous experience with Tallinn power systems, she knew that the spine of the behemoth vessel would be given over to the engine room, fuel supplies, rudimentary jump drive, and exhaust manifolds. Kate double-checked the fastest route and called out to Merrick, "We need to go down two levels!"
Merrick slowed and glanced back at Kate. "Nemus?"
"Yeah. There's a gangway leading down to the holds rig
ht around the corner where several corridors converge."
"Got it."
Not for the first time, Kate was glad for Merrick's acceptance of her link with Nemus, and Knowl before him. It was crazy to be able to talk to a giant tree, even when they were light years apart, but Merrick rolled with each revelation Nemus gave her. A smile tugged at her lips. As they rounded the corner and found the intersection, Kate's smile evaporated.
Tallinn crew were strewn about the floor of the intersection and connecting corridors, their bodies frozen in the twisted, unnatural poses of death.
"What happened here?" Kate whispered as she swept her glowing eyes across the still scene.
"Looks like some sort of last stand," Merrick said. He pointed at a sealed hatch off to one side. "Someone used one of the emergency shuttles. These crewman covered the escape."
Kate glanced from the sealed shuttle door to the opposite side of the corridor. An identical hatch stood open. A quick look with her light revealed the darkened interior with its rows of acceleration couches. "There's still an escape pod here," Kate muttered. She swept her light over the faces of the dead ironclad crew. "Why didn't they pile in and get clear?"
Merrick took a closer look at the nearest body.
"They're all armed," Merrick noted. He picked up a nearby rifle and pulled back on the bolt. The action was stiff due to the weapon's long wait in the cold. Merrick examined the chamber then the ammunition clip. "Empty." He looked up at Kate. "They went down fighting."
"Not escaping..." Kate thought aloud. A tuft of blonde hair spilling across a nearby face drew Kate's attention. She'd seen that pony tail before.
Merrick ran his gloved hand over several bullet holes in the wall. "They really shouldn't have been using these slug throwers aboard their ship."
Kate ignored the marine's assessment of the weapons chosen by the crew to defend themselves. Instead, she stepped closer to the still form of Lieutenant Phoebe.
Merrick noticed her interest and stepped over to Kate's side. "Someone you know?"
"Yeah," Kate breathed. She cleared her throat and went on, "Back on the bridge, I had a flash of her as she was reporting the status of the survey team to Captain Reese and the Watcher." Without thinking, Kate bent forward to brush the hair away from Lt. Phoebe's face.
"Wait!" Merrick called out.
Merrick's warning came too late for Kate as she found herself transported to the fateful battle in the corridor.
"You'll need this, ma'am," an enlisted crewman was telling Lieutenant Phoebe as he handed her a heavy assault rifle.
Lt. Phoebe took the rifle and pursed her lips. Yes, she had been trained on the use of such weapons. She always assumed if she had to fire the big guns it would be in the defense of her crewmates while they explored some alien planetary surface. Everyone aboard a starship knew the last thing you wanted to have was a bunch of chemical-propelled projectiles flying around inside your vessel. If they were handing out the heavy caliber guns to people like her, who would normally do their fighting with the ship's big guns and missiles from their control stations on the bridge, then they were indeed in some serious trouble. She looked over the man's shoulder into the storage locker.
"Shouldn't we be using the beamers?" Lt. Phoebe asked.
"Yes, ma'am. But they've all been handed out. Not sure what happened to the group who took them...no one's come back..." The man's eyes drifted to the corridor behind Lt. Phoebe.
Lt. Phoebe squared her shoulders at the news. She was not about to run and hide when the rest of her crew might be fighting for their lives down below. The Lieutenant glanced around at the men and women huddling near the weapons locker. They were a mix of off-shift bridge crew, medical personnel, a few scientists rousted from their labs, and the cooks from the mess hall. They didn't look like much, but they might be the only armed force standing between whatever was invading the cargo hold and the bridge. Lt. Phoebe cleared her throat and the mismatched force looked up at her expectantly.
"Okay," Lt. Phoebe began. She suddenly realized if she was going to take charge of this ragtag bunch she needed to act like it. She took a deep breath and met the eyes of several of the nearest men and women. Tral, Phoebe thought, they're actually waiting on me for their orders!
"Listen up!" Phoebe started over, using her best command voice. "We have unknown invaders in the lower hold. Maybe something from the surface—"
"There were not supposed to be any macro-organisms on the surface," one of the lab geeks called out. He glanced down at his rifle as if it might bite him. "Shouldn't we, uh, try to capture a specimen?"
Lt. Phoebe gave the man a long hard look until he lowered his eyes. The objector sufficiently cowed, she continued, "We're not sure where it came from, but it is DEFINITELY hostile. We've lost contact with the Legionnaires who were sent to meet the returning survey team. My orders are to re-establish contact with the Legion commander and take whatever actions are necessary to defend this ship." She emphasized her point by jabbing her finger at the deck. "We will secure Seiklus and protect her passengers and crew!"
"What about the Watcher?" It was a cook asking the question. Hope rose in his voice. "He can stop them, right?"
Lt. Phoebe looked over the crew members. She knew what they were thinking. There was so much mystery surrounding the Watcher, many of them probably thought he had some special powers. Would his magic save them now?
"Perhaps he's already burned our enemy down with his blazing eyes," Lt. Phoebe said with a slight smile. There was a smattering of nervous laughter. It was the best the young Lieutenant could do to break the tension. She added, "On the off chance his laser eyes are not sufficient, we are going down to find what assistance we can possibly render to our Watcher. Let's move!" Lt. Phoebe raised her weapon and pushed her way through the crowd. Her instructors had always talked about 'leading from the front', now she finally knew what they were talking about.
A cheer went up behind her. She did not look back to see if everyone was following her. From the sound of the footfalls, she felt certain her crewmates were along for the dire adventure. Lt. Phoebe let a grim smile cross her face. She whispered, "The final charge of the support crew it is then..."
They made it as far as the next cross corridor before they ran into the Watcher himself. Lt. Phoebe stifled a cry and raised her weapon so it pointed to the ceiling. Beads of sweat burst out on her forehead as she realized she'd nearly killed their most important passenger.
"Select!" Lt. Phoebe declared, taking her cue from Captain Reese. "How can we serve you?" She lowered her gaze, but not before seeing the wild look in the Watcher's glowing emerald eyes. Oh, God, Phoebe thought, if he's scared, what hope do we have?
The Watcher straightened and looked around at the gathered crewmen. She realized the man was using the same tactic she'd used just moments earlier while gathering her thoughts. Maybe these Watchers weren't so different from the rest of us Tallinns after all.
"We have unleashed an ancient evil," the Watcher said. "And also made an astounding discovery which will change our way of life...forever."
"The shuttle..." Lt. Phoebe breathed. She couldn't stop the excitement bubbling up inside her. The Lieutenant looked into the Watcher's eyes. Now that he'd mastered himself once again, the fear was gone, to be replaced by intense desire. She knew she was out of line, but Phoebe couldn't stop herself. "Watcher, what did they find?"
The Watcher's eyes darted to the bulky package in his hands, a round object wrapped in blanket. The Watcher met Phoebe's eyes. He nodded slightly, as if coming to some inner decision.
"We have found our future..." the Watcher announced.
Very slowly, he pulled up a single corner of the blanket. Blue light bathed the corridor. Around Lt. Phoebe, crew members gasped at the sight of the glowing orb burning with an inner fire. Flames writhed beneath the multi-faceted crystal sphere and deeper, deeper Phoebe would swear she saw...
The Watcher flipped the blanket back in place. The absence of the orb'
s brilliant light plunged the intersection into comparative darkness.
Lt. Phoebe tore her eyes from the bundle and forced her mind back to the here and now. In a low, steady voice, Phoebe asked, "What will you have us do, Select?"
"This," the Watcher laid his hand on the covered orb, "is the destiny of our people...if we can manage to keep it."
In that instant, Lt. Phoebe knew the ship was lost. If the Legionnaires, with their mechs, training, and specialized weapons were being overrun along with the rest of the crew there was only one course of action. She glanced at the men and women crowded around her, then to the Watcher with his mysterious treasure. Phoebe wondered how her fellow crew members were going to take her next order. She swallowed and bowed her head to the Watcher.
"Select, it is you who must live," Lt. Phoebe said. "You hold the future of the Tallinns. We will give you as much time as we can." She looked up and pointed at the entrance to one of the two escape shuttles accessible from this intersection. Her crewmates had crowded around and were blocking the hatch. When no one moved, Lt. Phoebe shouted, "MAKE A HOLE!"
Training took over and the crewmen between the Watcher and the shuttle moved out of the way, giving him a direct path to the only safe refuge the Lieutenant could come up with. The Watcher nodded to Phoebe. He straightened his shoulders then strode purposefully to the shuttle. He squeezed into the hatch and turned, ready to say something. The sound of gunfire and blasters erupted from the direction of the gangway where Phoebe and the Watcher had nearly collided.
"Defensive positions!" Lt. Phoebe ordered her small command. "We will hold them here! The shuttle needs forty-five seconds to detach!" Around her, crew members hurried to get in place to protect their flanks and aimed their weapons down the gangway. Lt. Phoebe looked over at the Watcher.
"You're sacrifice will be remembered," the Watcher declared solemnly. The hatch to the emergency shuttle hissed closed. Lt. Phoebe stared at if for a moment and wondered if maybe she should have jumped aboard as well. She pushed the thought away. Her place was here.