by G J Ogden
Sterling scanned the readings as Razor detailed the findings in brief. “What about Colicos’ shuttle? Can we say with certainty where it went?” he asked.
“It’s impossible to be certain based on the data we have, Captain,” Razor replied.
“Then give me your best guess, Lieutenant,” Sterling replied, turning back to the viewscreen. “We’ll just have to hope luck is on our side.”
Razor turned back to her array of computers; fingers flashing across the consoles. A short while later she turned to face the command deck. “Head for the space station around the fourth planet, Captain,” Razor said, announcing her findings. “It’s our best shot.”
Sterling was silent for a moment while considering his options. Simply passing through the aperture and emerging directly on the other side would allow them to make a more detailed scan and fix their destination with accuracy. However, any ships in the system would detect the surge and have ample time to intercept. Vectoring their surge so as to arrive as close to their target as possible would give them the element of surprise, but it also carried considerably more risk. However, risk was part of the game and they’d come too far to play it safe now.
“Ensign Keller, plot a surge vector that takes us as close to the orbital platform around the fourth planet as you can get us,” Sterling said. He then pushed away from the console and pressed his hands behind his back.
“Exactly how close do you want me to get, sir?” Keller replied, peering over his shoulder at his captain.
“So long as you don’t crash into it, Ensign, I don’t care if we stop an inch away from its hull,” Sterling replied, dryly. “Just get us close.”
“Aye, Captain,” Keller replied, setting to work.
A deathly calm then fell over the bridge, punctuated only by the soft bleeps and chirps of the different stations. Sterling glanced across to Shade and saw that she was poised over her console, like a tiger lying prone in the long grasses ready to pounce. To his left, Banks was focused ahead, arms folded across her chest. The definition of the muscles in her arms and shoulders showing through her tunic told Sterling she was also coiled and ready. To the rear, Lieutenant Razor appeared as calm as the space outside their viewscreen. She met Sterling’s eyes briefly, then looked ahead. Sterling wondered how he would respond in her shoes, with a ticking time-bomb in her head. Would he have been so philosophical and accepting of his fate as Razor had been of hers?
Everyone dies, Sterling reminded himself, turning back to the viewscreen. It’s only a matter of when and how. To Sterling, it was only the how that he really cared about.
“Ready to surge, Captain,” announced Ensign Keller.
“Then take us in, Ensign,” Sterling replied, without hesitation.
Keller acknowledged the order then eased the ship toward the threshold of the aperture. Sterling felt the pulse of the ship’s engines and reactor build, along with the thrum of the surge field generator. Long surges were always risky and unpredictable, but the Invictus had made an art of bending probability to its will.
Seconds later the Invictus fell through the aperture in spacetime, temporarily removing Sterling from the confines of his own body and placing him into a thought-based limbo. Images of Ariel Gunn and Mercedes Banks invaded his mind, one rushing in front of another like the pictures of a flipbook. Not now, not now! Sterling told himself, fighting against the dark thoughts that plagued him like a dormant virus that couldn’t be fully eradicated. Then the ship punctured the rift between dimensions and burst back into normal space. Alarms rang out, jolting Sterling into action more severely than the panicked awakenings from his nightmares. The Sa’Nerran orbital platform was dead ahead and danger was close.
“Reverse engines full!” Sterling called out as the nose of the Invictus raced toward the station.
“They’ve seen us,” Shade called out, though that particular nugget of information was one Sterling could have guessed for himself. “They’re launching Wasps. Weapons systems on the platform are charging and locking on.”
“Turrets to automatic,” Sterling replied. “Let them handle the Wasps while we focus on the station’s weapons platforms.” He then watched as the Sa’Nerran fighter craft shot out from the space station like darts.
Ensign Keller’s quick reactions had pulled them clear of the station, affording Sterling his first good look at it. He’d seen and attacked dozens of Sa’Nerran outposts in the Void before, but this installation looked somehow even more alien.
“Evasive maneuvers, Ensign,” Sterling said as the ship was thudded by blasts from the encircling Wasps. “Pilot’s discretion.”
“Aye, sir,” Keller called out, though he was already operating at a frenzied pace, pushing the nimble Marauder to its limits.
Sterling could feel forces tugging on his body as the inertial negation system struggled to keep pace with the talented helmsman. The Invictus’ plasma rail guns then flashed and explosions rippled out across the station. Moments later they were hit and more alerts rang out.
“Minor hull breach, deck four,” Banks called out. “Re-routing power to regenerative armor.”
“Give us everything you can, Lieutenant,” Sterling called back to his engineer, though like Ensign Keller, Razor was already flat out.
Two Wasps were caught by blasts from their plasma turrets and collided with the Sa’Nerran station. A second volley from the main rail guns then destroyed more of the installation’s static gun emplacements. However, Sterling could see that the station’s remaining weapons were again ready to fire.
“Keep the Invictus on the side of the station with the fewest guns, Ensign,” Sterling ordered, adjusting the readout on his own console to a tactical view of the installation. One half of the station had only a couple of guns remaining, while the other side still packed enough firepower to obliterate them.
“Lieutenant Shade, launch torpedoes at these co-ordinates,” Banks called out, adding to the cacophony of noise on the bridge. “We need to take out their hangar bays so they can’t launch any more fighters.”
Shade acknowledged the order then Sterling saw two torpedoes snake out from the rear launchers of the Invictus. Moments later they were hit by another blast of plasma from the station and Sterling was thrown hard to deck. Consoles blew out on the bridge and more alarms sounded.
“Report!” Sterling called out, pulling himself back to his station.
“Moderate damage, midships to port,” Banks reported. “Armor depleted. Evacuation of sections ten through twelve on decks three and four underway.”
The torpedoes that Shade launched then slammed into the station, sealing the hangar bays and also causing the installation's power levels to fluctuate wildly. Shade continued to fire, using every weapons system the Marauder-class ship had in its arsenal, while Keller tried desperately to keep them from being hit again.
“All the weapons platforms in this section of the station are disabled, Captain,” Shade called out. “And the four remaining Wasps are running in the direction of the third planet.”
Sterling checked his console then saw why the fighters had chosen that particular course. A squadron of six light cruisers had set out from the planet and were heading in their direction.
“Hull breaches secured, Captain,” Lieutenant Razor called out. “I’ll need to launch repair drones to patch up the damaged armor plating.”
“How long until those cruisers get here?” Sterling asked, turning to Commander Banks.
“Three hours, maybe less,” his first officer replied. “They’re burning hard. Scanners show another three more warships launching from a station around the third planet, but they’re only Skirmishers, and they’re all phase ones.”
“Phase one? Even the cruisers?” queried Sterling, frowning down at his own console to confirm the readings. “Those are decades old.”
“It’s like you said, Captain,” replied Banks. “Maybe they’ve committed their newer ships to the invasion. All that’s left out here are relics
.”
“That number of phase ones can still take us down,” Sterling said, while scanning the orbital platform ahead of them. Their attacks had crippled its offensive capabilities and left twenty percent of the station damaged. Like the ships that were on their way to intercept them, the station was old and vulnerable. “We need to get onto the station, find Colicos, and get out again before those ships get within range.” Sterling turned to Ensign Keller. “Latch onto the station at these co-ordinates,” he began, sending the location to Keller’s console from his own station. “Then scan for apertures, including any that might be unstable and hidden. We’re may not have a choice over how we get out of here or where we end up.”
Keller responded briskly then turned back to his console and set to work. Commander Banks arrived at Sterling’s side, muscles taut and eyes shining with purpose.
“Lieutenant Shade, assemble your commando team,” Sterling said to his weapons officer. Shade was already staring back at him, her eyes betraying the same single-mindedness that he’d already observed in Banks. If he’d looked in a mirror at that moment, he’d have seen it in himself too. They were ready. “We assault the station at once.”
Chapter 25
Those we leave behind
Ensign Keller swooped the Invictus down toward the space station, like a kestrel diving at its prey. There was a thud through the deck plating as the ship set down then latched on with the ventral umbilical at the co-ordinates Sterling had specified.
“Cutting through now, Captain,” Shade called out. “Sixty seconds.” Shade and her commandoes were already geared up for the assault. As with the attack on the Sa’Nerran cruiser, the soldiers were equipped with Homewrecker heavy plasma rifles and plasma hand cannons. This time, Sterling had also assigned grenades. In general, blowing holes in starships and space stations you have boarded is never a good idea, but this time he needed every available weapon and option at his disposal.
“Once we’ve breached, make your way through the outer sections towards this central area,” Sterling called out, highlighting the location on his wrist computer. “Scans of the station have shown it to have a honeycomb-like structure around the circumference, surrounding a larger, more open space in the center,” Sterling continued, as his computer updated the images to match what he was saying. “Based on what we've seen on Sa’Nerran outposts in the Void, this should be a command center.”
Sterling lowered his wrist and drew his plasma pistol. A Sa’Nerran half-moon blade was also attached to his armor. He’d could have a used a Fleet-issue close-quarters weapon, but he preferred the alien blade. It was brutally-effective and brutality was exactly what was required of him.
“We have no idea where Colicos is or even if he’s still here,” Banks added, dialing the power setting of her Homewrecker to maximum, “and we have less than two hours to get in, locate him and get out again before Sa’Nerran reinforcements arrive. I know it sounds impossible, but the impossible is our specialty.”
There was a hiss of air as the pressure between the ship’s docking section and the station equalized.
“We’re through, Captain,” Shade announced as the sound of the boarding tunnel extending into the alien station whirred through the cabin. The indicator then turned green and the hatch opened. “Go, move out!” Shade called, slapping the lead commando on the back. “Move, move, move!”
Shade and her squad had barely reached the inner corridors of the station before plasma fire erupted through the opening. Sterling and Banks followed, rushing through the boarding tunnel, weapons raised. A single commando then dropped down behind them and set up a gun emplacement to guard their entry point. Unlike the assault on the Sa’Nerran cruiser, there was only one way in and out of the station. They had to secure their route back to the ship or they’d be trapped inside.
“This doesn’t look like any Sa’Nerran station I’ve seen before,” Sterling commented, moving up behind the advancing squad. “These outer sections are more densely packed than normal. The Sa’Nerra prefer open spaces.”
To either side of the corridor were doors, spaced only a few meters apart. As he advanced further into the station, Sterling saw that the same arrangement continued along intersecting corridors and appeared to run around the entire circumference of the station.
“Maybe they’re storage areas?” Banks suggested, creeping forward, holding the powerful Homewrecker in one hand and a pistol in the other.
“I don’t know what the hell they are, and I’m not sure I want to find out,” Sterling replied.
The commando squad had advanced with ruthless efficiency and was approaching the open area in the center of the station. Stepping over the charred remains of Sa’Nerran warriors, Sterling got his first clear look at the central area. Unlike the boxy, honeycomb layout of the outer sections, the central area was a like a giant mesh scaffold, except built on the inside rather than the exterior of the structure. There was a long, sweeping staircase, spiraling down to the lower levels, plummeting hundreds of meters into the belly of the station.
“It could take days to search this place,” said Sterling, coming to terms with the scale of their task for the first time. Despite his bravado about the Omega Taskforce specializing in the impossible, he wasn’t foolish enough to believe that there was some supernatural hand guiding their journey. Perhaps naively, he had hoped that they would break into the station and find James Colicos merrily working at a console right where they’d entered. However, that hadn’t happened and now he was faced with an entire space station and no idea where to look first. He didn’t even know if the scientist was on the station at all.
Sterling felt a neural link from Lieutenant Shade form in his mind. He opened it to allow the rest of the assault squad to monitor.
“We’re at the central area, Captain,” Shade began, as more plasma blasts filtered down the corridor close to his position. “Emergency bulkheads have sealed off the decks below level three. We can’t get lower, at least not from here.”
“Any sign of Colicos?” Sterling asked, remaining hopeful.
“Negative,” Shade replied, crushing Sterling’s hopes with a single word. “There’s extensive damage to this central section. We’re meeting moderate resistance, but these warriors look tired and old. Their weapons and armor are outdated and are no match for ours.”
“Understood, Lieutenant, secure your position and wait for instructions,” Sterling replied. A link then formed from Commander Graves on the Invictus and Sterling opened it, allowing Banks to monitor.
“Captain, I have some new information from Lieutenant Razor,” Graves began. Sterling was about to ask why his engineer hadn’t formed the link herself, before remembering that her neural abilities had been temporarily suppressed.
“Go head, Commander, but make it good. We’re searching for a needle in a haystack down here,” Sterling replied.
“Breaching the hull of the station has allowed us to conduct more detailed scans of the interior structure,” Graves continued. “Lieutenant Razor believes that the honeycomb structures surrounding your current position contain life signs.”
“Life signs?” repeated Sterling. “Sa’Nerran or human, or something else?” It was the ‘something else’ option that concerned him the most.
“There is no-way to distinguish with any accuracy Captain,” Graves continued, “but, given the distant location of the facility, coupled with the fact it was armed, perhaps it is a prison installation of some kind?”
Banks raised an eyebrow at this suggestion. “If they brought Colicos here to continue his experiments, that might make sense,” she said.
“Thank you, Commander, keep us updated,” Sterling said, tapping his interface to close the link. He then glanced over to one of the many doors lining the corridor. “I think it’s about time we found out what this honeycomb contains,” he said.
“I can try to bypass the lock,” said Banks, reaching for her computer.
“No time,” Sterling replied.
“Just bypass it the unsubtle way.”
Banks smiled as she stepped in front of one of the doors. Aiming the powerful Homewrecker rifle she unloaded a barrage of plasma blasts, smashing open a section of the door and the wall beside it. Sterling wafted the smell of burning electronics and molten metal from his face then advanced, pistol raised. Banks also moved up to the new opening. It was dark inside and Sterling couldn’t see anything other than smoke.
“Can you make the gap wider?” Sterling asked, still aiming into the darkness.
Banks slung the rifle then gripped the sides of the door with her armored gloves. Gritting her teeth, she pulled back, wrenching the door away from its housing. Sterling flicked on the searchlight built into the shoulder section of his armor and stepped nearer, shining the beam inside. The light fell first onto a narrow cot bed, then as Sterling swept it across the room, it shone onto the face of a man, huddled in the corner. The prisoner was emaciated, dressed in dirty grey overalls, and looked terrified. Sterling met Banks’ eyes, each as shocked and surprised to see a human in the cell as the other. Sterling dimmed the light then lowered his pistol.
“It’s okay, we’re with Fleet,” Sterling said, extending his hand to the man.
“Fleet?” the prisoner answered, climbing gingerly to his feet. “Fleet was destroyed. Earth too.”
Sterling shook his head. “Not yet. The war is still going on.”
The man took a few tentative steps toward Sterling, his hand raised to shield his eyes from the harsh light in the corridor outside.
“You’re a rescue party?” the prisoner said. The man’s frail body remained guarded and his timid voice was filled with doubt. However, Sterling could also see the flicker of hope in the man’s eyes.
“We’re looking for someone,” Sterling replied, dodging the question. “James Colicos. Do you know him? Is he here?”