Transmuted (Dark Landing Series Book 1)

by Robin Praytor

  Letty called to him from across the room. “It’s just like we said, Drew. There’s a new wormhole cluster. Only one has been probed and stabilized so far, and I couldn’t reach Anne because communication relays aren’t deployed.”

  Drew joined them at the other end of the conference table.

  Anne looked annoyed. “Letty, you didn’t let me finish. Ordinarily there would be an Alliance-wide announcement, but with everything else going on we need to keep the discovery as quiet as possible.”

  “Oh . . . sorry.”

  “It’s okay here. With Dark Landing now in greater contiguity to Earth, the command staff will learn of it by necessity, along with local TSF staff, but we don’t want it to be general knowledge.”

  “Understood,” Letty seemed only marginally contrite.

  Ignoring their exchange, Drew looked at Anne with a saddened expression. “Prosse?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. Were you acquainted with someone there? Camdu commissioned an Earth ship to evacuate anyone who wanted to leave, but they arrived too late. They scanned and found no survivors.”

  “Oh, no!” Letty cried, “What are we going to tell Toby?”

  “Toby?” Anne asked.

  Drew explained the boy’s presence on Dark Landing. Tears streamed down Letty’s face. Her grief over the death of her own father was still fresh. Toby’s loss had rekindled it.

  “Letty, sweetheart, we should tell Toby right away, but you need to be strong for him.” As soon as he called her sweetheart—her father’s endearment for her—Drew realized his mistake.

  Letty leaned on the table and buried her face in her arms.

  Anne went to her and motioned Drew out of the room. As much as he wanted to be there for her, Anne was right. Letty had brushed him off more than once, and she would respond better to another woman than to him. He left the conference room and sought out Curtis at the shift commander’s desk. He’d been offered Fitz’s office, but preferred to work closer to the action and keep an eye on Jonesy and Kyle.

  “Where’s Kyle?”

  “There was a dust up in the mezzanine bar. He went to sort it out.”

  “You seen Toby Greenstein?”

  “Yeah, he left with some of the guys to get something to eat. What’s up?”

  “His parents were killed in an attack on Prosse.”

  “Ah, that’s harsh. What are you gonna to do with him?”

  “Keep him with us short term. Will you find out if he’s got other relatives somewhere?”

  “Sure, I’ll look into it.”

  “Anything new?” Drew asked.

  Curtis rubbed his face and yawned. From the shadows under his eyes and his sluggish movements, Drew could see he was beat. Curtis was not only performing Fitz’s chief duties, made harder by the added strain of the evacuee population, but also overseeing the shift commands to relieve Drew of much of the daily routine.

  “I just chatted with the ETOC reps,” Curtis said. “They haven’t learned anything from Mattie we didn’t already know. I doubt they’re going to.”

  “I agree. Listen, on second thought, why don’t you take off and get some sleep? I’ll watch the shop until Kyle or Jonesy gets here and have one of them look into the Toby thing. I don’t want you back in HQ until morning.”

  Curtis didn’t argue. “Thanks, boss. I’m bushed.”

  ~ ~ ∞ ~ ~

  Drew reviewed provisioning records until Toby returned to HQ. He preferred to wait for Letty before talking to the boy but, under the circumstances, he didn’t think she was up to it. He couldn’t handle the two of them if they broke down at the same time. He brought Toby into his office and sat next to him on the lounger.

  “Look, maybe we aren’t the best of friends,” he began, “but I want you to know I do care about you. There’s something really tough I need to tell you.”

  Toby looked down and shuffled a foot against the deck, “Yeah, I figured. You’re sending me back to my folks, right? It’s okay—I sorta miss my ma.”

  Drew felt stinging behind his eyes. Jesus! “Toby, I have some really bad news. You heard about the colonies and ships that were attacked?”

  Toby’s head snapped up and he looked hard at Drew, fear building in his eyes. “Yeah . . . so?”

  “I’m so sorry, Toby, but Prosse was one of the places attacked. A ship arrived afterward and didn’t find survivors. Your mom and dad died in the attack.”

  The boy’s eyes filled with tears and his bottom lip quivered. Before the tears fell, he jumped from the lounger and ran out of the office.

  Drew tried to catch up to him, but Toby had always been too quick. Letty stepped out of the conference room as Drew was sprinting past, and he stopped.

  “What’s happening?” Her eyes were red, but otherwise she seemed to have recovered.

  “I told Toby about his parents and he took off.”

  Letty blinked rapidly and squared her shoulders. “I’ll help you find him.”

  Drew tapped his com and issued an alert to keep an eye out for the boy. “There’s a couple places we can look first. He hangs out around the bazaar or down at the docks,” he said. “You take the bazaar; I’ll take the docks.”

  Before Letty could respond, the emergency siren sounded, repeating in long, closely spaced whoops. Hatches began to close automatically. All the hatches would remain operational as long as environmental services were functioning on both sides. Even though Drew had override authority, he needed to be in HQ in the event of the catastrophe which would cause that hatch to lock even him out. When the siren paused and a canned announcement came over the speakers, it was clear the threat extended station-wide:

  All essential personnel report to your assigned stations. Commercial enterprises are ordered to close. Non-essential staff and residents proceed to your quarters. Emergency procedures are now in effect. Further announcements will follow. Remember your training. Thank you for your cooperation.

  The announcement repeated and the sirens blared once more. Drew grabbed Letty’s hand to bring her with him, but she pulled away.

  “I’m going to find Toby,” she said, and headed toward the outer corridor without waiting for his response.

  Drew couldn’t follower her. His responsibility was in HQ. Now what?

  Chapter 28: Onslaught

  Curtis groaned. His arms and legs thrashed against the sirens assaulting his slumber. Only when he’d knocked the bowl off the end of his bunk dumping the remains of popcorn from three days earlier, did he come fully awake.

  “What the hell!”

  As the announcement played, he grabbed the uniform pants he’d worn that morning, making a face at their wrinkled condition, and reached for his boots. He tapped security dispatch. Three unidentified ships were approaching the station, ignoring Dark Landing’s hails. Station shields were activated. Drew’s orders were to check on the evacuees camped in the corridors and the bazaar on his way to HQ. Their guests had no training in emergency procedures, and no assigned stations or quarters to go to. Curtis could imagine their panicked state, and was curious exactly how he was expected to handle the masses alone.

  As soon as he entered the corridor from his quarters, he knew the situation was as bad as he’d envisioned. Evacuees were crammed against the far hatch to the public areas, attempting to pound it open. Curtis yelled above the siren whoops. “People . . . listen to me!”

  The crowd turned and, seeing his uniform, came at him shouting questions.

  “Shut up!” Curtis reached for his blaster with no intention of drawing it. The motion slowed them down, and they quieted somewhat.

  “I’m as in the dark as you are,” he lied. “I won’t know what’s happening until I get to headquarters, and there may be another announcement explaining the situation long before I get there.”

  Other than a few scattered whispers, they were now listening to him, though they looked ready to erupt at any moment.

  Curtis continued in a more even tone. “You’re in the middle of the st
ation and as safe here as anywhere. The hatches are closed, but they’re still operational if you use the manual key pad, but not by pushing and pounding on them.”

  Two women broke from the crowd and headed back to the hatch.

  Curtis raised his voice again. “However, I’m advising you to stay here until we know what’s happening. Please try to stay calm. Chief Cutter does not believe in withholding information—”

  The siren cut out as Cutter’s voice came over the speaker:

  “Could I have everyone’s attention? Dark Landing is being attacked by unidentified ships. So far, two Bin fighters and a heavily armed ETOC ship are holding the attackers off. We’ve sustained no damage, and I expect the attack to end soon. Remain calm and stay where you are. I’ll keep you advised.”

  The announcement ended abruptly, and the two women opened the hatch and hurried out. Curtis didn’t stop them. He had the others’ attention, but their expressions had changed from fear to terror. Great timing, Drew.

  “Okay, I know you’re frightened, but don’t panic. Wait for the all clear announcement. I’m reporting to my station.” He pushed through the crowd, ignoring questions, and opened the hatch. As it closed behind him, a laser blast shook the station.

  The hit, though too weak to throw anyone to the deck, managed to send them into the frenzied state they’d been barely containing. The hatch reopened, and Curtis was jostled to one side as the evacuees piled out to join the pandemonium in the main corridor. Without more men, short of shooting someone, he couldn’t think of a way to regain their attention, let alone contain the panic. But it couldn’t make it any worse, he thought.

  ~ ~ ∞ ~ ~

  The Diak ships matched the design of the one that attacked the Temperance. Evidently they stopped bothering with disguises. An enemy laser pulse had breached the shields and hit the east armature. Drew’s display showed debris from a missing chunk blown out midway between Dark Landing and Spud, rendering it impassible. With redundancies upon redundancies, Dark Landing had no single point of failure. However, to any attacker, the armatures securing it to Spud would appear a weakness.

  Without the correct code, shared only by ships approved for travel within Alliance territory, the Diak would be unable to detect the shielded threads of Pohang steel alloy. Pohang alloy was stronger than titanium, stronger even than uru. They might destroy both armatures in their attempt to separate the station from the asteroid. But twenty slender threads strung between Dark Landing and Spud, stacked at varying intervals (five above and five below each armature), would need to be individually severed.

  Drew watched as one of the Bin ships entered the edge of Drew’s display, atmosphere streaming from one side. Severely crippled, the ship was still attempting to defend the station. Despite the damage and, Drew was sure, fatalities, it maneuvered to face the Diak ship and continued to fire its forward lasers from its undamaged side. The second Bin ship joined its crippled twin. The Reagan did not appear on the display. The station shook again, but less violently in Security Headquarters this time. They’d sustained a hit from the west.

  He expanded his display to encompass the station and Spud in their entirety. Instead of a live-action view, all components of the battle were now rendered as icons. Bin ships and the Reagan appeared as green squares with ID tags off to the side. The enemy ships displayed as red squares. One of three red squares, tagged E-1, zig-zagged, forward and back, side-to-side, and fired laser salvos at the two Bin ships. The undamaged Bin valiantly defended its crippled partner, but gray concentric circles representing its shielding strength dimmed with each successful hit from the Diak ship. Its refusal to move from its partner’s side hampered the healthy Bin ship.

  The Reagan faced danger as well. Though more heavily armed and shielded than the Bin ships, it was outflanked. Two red squares, E2 and E3, moved in similar zig-zag patterns against the ETOC ship, keeping up continuous fire. So far the Reagan’s shields were holding, but its defensive fire was ineffective as the Diak corvettes darted in and out close around it.

  Another hit shook the station more forcefully than the previous two. Diak ship E1 had fired past its Bin targets and connected with Dark Landing proper. The main display indicated that the station shields, though activated, appeared to be failing. Either the shields are ineffective, or Fitz re-configured them before he left. Drew tapped engineering and ordered them to check the settings and run a diagnostic on the shielding programs. He didn’t know how long that process would take, but he hoped not long.

  Sirens recommenced their whooping as he zoomed in for a live view of the station, catching the last of the escaping atmosphere from the passage immediately behind dock sublevel one as it dissipated into surrounding space. His breath caught. As many as a dozen bodies floated amid the debris. A mental image of Letty’s face, bloodied and broken, flashed in front of him and his stomach flipped. He fought the urge to leave HQ to look for her.

  ~ ~ ∞ ~ ~

  The sirens blared once again as Curtis picked himself up from the deck. He looked through the port of the hatch he’d been about to open. A small airlock five feet across marked a seam between two sections. Normally the two hatches would stand open, unnoticeable to the foot traffic passing through them. The hatches on both sides had closed automatically at the onset of the attack. Now, through the opposite port, he saw bits of debris and body parts drifting away from the station. A circle of red lights flashed around the perimeter of the far hatch, confirming it was impassable, though the strip of green above the control pad showed the airlock was still pressurized. The laser hit took out a section of the corridor that skirted the back of the upper dock level. Curtis had detoured to the docks to make sure they’d evacuated, checking the corridors along the way. Dock workers were a stubborn bunch with a stand-your-ground devotion to their ships.

  Curtis headed back the way he’d come. He could do nothing for the poor souls on the opposite side of that airlock. He tapped dispatch to provide a first-hand report of the damage and request the safest alternate route to HQ. The sirens quieted as he ended the connection. A dull thudding noise sounded behind him. He spun around. A small fist pounded on the hatch window then dropped from view, reappearing a second later to pound again. In quick succession the fist appeared and disappeared three times. Thump . . . thump . . . thump. Someone, a child, was caught in the airlock.

  Curtis palmed the control pad, initiating a security override. The hatch didn’t respond. The green light strip above the pad now flashed to indicate oxygen depletion. There had to be a leak. He tapped environmental, glancing at the small lettering centered above the hatch.

  “Acting Chief Curtis Walker here. Hatch SL268-H is not responding to my override. At least one person, a child, is caught in the airlock between SL268-H and SL269-H.”

  After a brief silence, the tech responded. “I’m sorry, sir, but the atmosphere is leaking from a damaged seal on 269, and the 268 hatch cannot be opened.”

  “But I need to get in there.”

  “There’s nothing I can do, sir. Opening that hatch would endanger the station. The system won’t release the controls until the damage is repaired.”

  “There’s got to be a work-around. We can’t let this kid die.”

  “There’s not one I know of, sir. And if you managed to open the hatch, it would just cause a domino effect. The section you’re in would seal as well, and both of you would be trapped along with anyone else in that section.”

  “This is ridiculous. Do something, you idiot!” Yelling at the tech wouldn’t change things. He ended their connection. The hand no longer appeared in the window. The light still flashed green indicating some atmosphere remained, but he had no way to tell if it was enough to sustain life. When the light turned red there would be no air left.

  As he stood helpless, trying to think of something to do, the small hand appeared once more. This time the fingers dragged against the glass and down out of sight, leaving three red smears.

  “Shit . . . shit . . .
shit!”

  Curtis frantically surveyed the corridor for something to open the hatch, but with little hope. He needed a mechanical wedge to pry the door open and, even then, the bulkheads would likely give before the hatch. Its small port window, constructed of triple-paned quartz glass to withstand cosmic extremes of heat and cold, was shatterproof. Even a pile-driver wouldn’t make an impact. And environmental was right: breaching the hatch could endanger the whole station.

  The green light was still blinking. As he watched it, afraid to take his eyes away in case it stopped, he accepted an incoming tap from Jared Barlow in environmental services.

  “Look, Barlow, I’m sorry. I had no business attacking you.”

  “No worries, sir. I understand. We’ve been working on the problem at this end. Sensors show two people in the airlock—a child and an adult. The adult is unconscious. The child is conscious, but probably not for much longer. The air is pretty thin. Neither of them have com implants if you can believe that.”

  Shit, Curtis thought, it’s got to be Letty Taleen, and if it’s Letty, then the child is Toby—bet on it. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “Well, maybe, whether we can do it in time is the question. There are two techs in the crawl tube above the airlock right now.”

  Curtis listened for noises from above the corridor, but heard only Barlow’s recitation. He refocused on what the man was saying.

  “Our men are going to drill a small hole into the seam to feed oxygen through. Once we locate the leak, with the child’s help if he or she is still . . . is able to, maybe we can seal it. Then the control panel should reboot and you’ll be able to open the hatch. But even if we can’t get in right now, the oxygen feed will keep them alive until we can get outside and panel off the damage. The airlock bulkheads are still generating heat, so that’s not a problem unless the exterior hatch blows . . . ”