by Knyte,Peter
As I made my way through the ship I couldn’t help but allow one of my hands to stray up to my tunic collar where the Captain had pinned my new Lieutenant Commander bars, but even while I felt the unfamiliar metalwork beneath my fingertips it still didn’t seem quite real somehow.
I must admit I hesitated again when I reached the armament locker. This was a part of the ship that very few people aboard were normally allowed to access as it was reserved exclusively for the use of marine personnel, and even then this space would normally be very tightly controlled with armed marine guards both outside and in.
But that was the past, and if anything resembling it were to exist again I would need to play my part in making it happen. I entered the code the Captain had given me and immediately entered the locker, closing and locking the doors behind me.
It was a large space located on the same central axis decks as the main engineering sections, so that all parts of the ship were easily reached from this point. Just inside the main door there was a second reinforced barrier which the same access codes again enabled me to pass without any difficulty, and gain access to the main locker itself.
The moment I entered the secured locker area it was clear something untoward had happened here. The marine suits were some of the largest and most obvious pieces of equipment around the room, each one equally spaced for its designated user, with all the associated arms and armour arrayed alongside, but of the hundred or so suits nearly half were missing, while several other pieces of equipment were carelessly scattered around the deck and not in their designated storage location. For all the world it looked like a number of individuals unaccustomed to their use had donned the suits for some reason, and then struggled to control them once they were equipped.
I had a terrible suspicion about who could’ve done this, but I had to be sure before I took those suspicions to the Captain.
Marines and sailors the world over have a number of things in common, that to a degree were shared with the other armed forces, but first amongst these was organisation. Military vessels were by their nature more confined and less spacious than the landlocked bases used by the army or air forces, and as such everyone stationed aboard ship quickly developed the habit and routine of not only being organised but of everything having its proper place. The marines took this to an almost fanatical level, and as such within moments I’d found the inventory docum-entation that not only itemised every piece of equipment held in the armoury, it also listed its condition, and the dates upon which the inventory had last been checked and double checked.
Armed with this information I quickly identified that forty three of the marine suits recorded on the inventory were missing, as were an assortment of grapnels, light and heavy weapons, armour, medical supplies, habitation and ration packs.
I felt nausea start to build within me as I checked off more and more of the equipment on the inventory as missing. If there was any chance this was a mistake I had to be sure, so as soon as I’d finished in the primary locker I made my way around each of the peripheral armaments lockers to check their inventory also. My legs and back were tired and aching terribly from all the walking, bending and twisting, but this wasn’t something that could wait, so I pushed on until I’d confirmed that none of the peripheral lockers showed any sign of having been tampered with, and just as importantly none of them showed any sign of the equipment which was missing from the primary locker.
The last armaments locker I checked was relatively close to the area of the ship where I’d so recently met with the Captain and received my promotion, and here I was again within half a day of that meeting returning with more bad news.
He was deep in conversation with Bradbury out on one of the gunnery arm weapons platforms, but once I was sure he’d seen me I simply waited until he was finished and I was able to speak to him discreetly.
‘Is there a problem Lieutenant Commander?’ Was all he said as soon as we were alone.
‘Yes sir, I’m afraid there is.’ Was all I could say in response.
I explained what I’d discovered in as neutral a tone as I could manage, being careful not to conjecture upon who may have taken this equipment until I’d carefully delivered all of the facts for the Captain to make up his own mind.
‘And who do you think may have taken these powerful weapons and other supplies?’ He finally asked.
‘As I see it sir, there are only two credible alternatives.
‘Either this equipment was taken by our newly found friends and colleagues amongst the city’s authorities when we first arrived and they boarded the Khan in order to evacuate the crew.
‘Or it was a contingent of the saboteurs, who took the suits in order to abandon ship when they realised the fight was not going their way.’
‘I agree,’ replied the Captain, simply. ‘And do you think either of these options more likely than the other?’
‘Yes sir, I’m afraid I do.’ I responded, hesitating only momentarily. ‘If it were anyone from among the authorities on this world they wouldn’t have bothered to take the rations or the survival equipment, as such I think it most likely the suits, supplies and other equipment were taken by a group of the saboteurs in an attempt to survive in the Expanse after the Khan was destroyed.’
‘Thank you Mr Hall,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘I agree with your assessment completely. If we assume it was one saboteur per suit, that would make a force of forty three traitors, a number which could easily be accounted for from among the missing crew members that we’d assumed were lost in the Expanse, either before the ship translated into this world or as a direct consequence of being exposed to the Arc energies when we did translate.
‘But the question remains, where are these traitors now? Did they come through into this world with us, or did they abandon ship while we were still in the Expanse, leaving them still there?’
‘Surely, if they’d come through to this world with us,’ I conjectured. ‘They’d have been spotted by now. Even if they managed to get off the ship undetected in the storm, which seems unlikely given that the majority of them would never have used a marine suit before. Where could they possibly hide forty plus people and all the equipment they brought with them?’
‘I’ll concede it seems unlikely,’ the Captain confirmed, still deep in thought. ‘But we need to plan for the contingency, just the same. We also need to try and guess what those individuals would do if they were marooned in the Expanse.
‘We’re going to have to come clean with the city authorities about this, and that means the demonstration of the marine suit capability is now all the more urgent, can you be ready to demonstrate its use in . . . three hours’ time?’
I confirmed I could, though asked the Captain to try and arrange for the demonstration to be held somewhere that could accommodate the odd mistake or misjudgement on my behalf.
I also asked him about bringing Ariel up to speed with the latest developments, which he was happy for me to do.
‘In fact, if you could ask her to have a think about what strategy the saboteurs might attempt to employ if they are stuck in the Expanse, and then the three of us will meet to discuss later on this evening after the demonstration and the discussion that will need to follow it have taken place.
‘But let’s keep this last aspect to the crew only for the moment Mr Hall,’ he continued, still clearly thinking about the implications. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust our new friends, but they could easily start to feel a little overwhelmed by all this if we’re not careful.’
It hadn’t occurred to me, but once he mentioned it, it made sense. If Platt’s or Jenkin’s superiors started to feel the situation was getting out of control they might act rashly.
With that I excused myself, and went off to find Ariel, both to bring her up to speed and to ask for her help in getting into one of the marine suits.
I was so pre-occupied with all the things I discussed with the Captain that I’d completely forgotten about my promotion when I reac
hed the lensing lab where I knew she was working, so I walked in as normal and simply strolled over to join her where she was working with the two film technicians.
‘Lieutenant-Commander Ashton Hall, it’s got a nice sound to it,’ she commented, with a big Cheshire cat smile on her face.
‘Oh, yes, I’d almost forgotten,’ I replied, involuntarily lifting my hand to touch the bars on the neck of my tunic again.
‘You’d almost forgotten being promoted!’ she scoffed incredulously. ‘What on earth did the Captain have to say to you?’
I could tell from the look in her eye and the fading of her smile as she spoke, that she’d realised something serious must’ve happened.
‘I know it’s a bit late for lunch,’ I commented, as casually as I could. ‘But I didn’t get a chance earlier on, so was wandering if you could spare a couple of hours to grab a quick bite and to give me hand with something.’
‘Yes, of course, I think they can spare me from here for a while.’ She said, by way of checking with the two technicians.
Getting something to eat had just been an excuse, but as we headed over to the primary marine locker, I realised I was quite hungry, and knew once I’d got the suit on I wouldn’t dare try and eat anything for fear of accidentally knocking myself out.
There was a lot I needed to brief Ariel about, so I suggested a detour via the mess area on the engineering decks that Bradbury had set up for his men.
It was an odd time in the shift, so there were very few people around and I was able to grab a quick sandwich and some fruit to go with a large cup of tea, before leading Ariel over to a quiet corner table.
This mess had been one of the genuine havens away from the miasmic influence of the Expanse just a few short weeks ago, so despite being a big room with fairly basic furnishings, I knew it had altogether more homely associations for both me and Ariel.
As soon as we were settled and I’d munched my way around the sandwich, I explained first about how the Captain had caught me completely off guard by offering me the promotion, and how in my shock I’d accepted before I’d realised, after which the Captain had mentioned that as part of my new responsibilities he also wanted me to act as the senior officer in command of the remaining marine units.
‘Wow, Ash! That is a serious amount of responsibility and trust the Captain has offered you there. How do you feel about it?’ She asked, genuinely pleased for me.
‘Honestly, Ariel I’m not sure.’ I had to admit. ‘If I were sure I could serve them well, then I’d feel a lot more comfortable with the responsibility, and I know they’ve lost everyone above the rank of Sergeant, and have even lost a couple of those, but I can’t help but think there must be someone better placed.’
‘Well, you know Ash if your first thought is that you want to be worthy of the men you’ll be commanding, then your instincts are leading you true.’
It was reassuring to hear this from Ariel, and it helped me to put those concerns to the back of my mind while I explained the rest of the situation to her.
I began by explaining what the Captain had said about the need to try and figure out what the Lamphrey was now up to, but that after the attack the city officials were understandably concerned about what would happen if the creature were to get wind of the fact that the ship is still very vulnerable at the moment, and how, as a consequence the Captain needed some way of reassuring everyone that he could secure his own ship without the need for the city to station military personnel aboard.
‘And that’s why he was asking whether you were in any condition to don one of the suits,’ she said, answering her own question. ‘Do you think you can do it?’
‘I think so, provided I don’t try anything too difficult while I’ve got the thing on,’ I said, almost confidently. ‘But there’s more.
‘When I went down to the primary arms locker I discovered that quite a lot of the marine suits were already missing, along with supplies, spare ammo and some other survival gear.’
‘And you’re sure it’s not just been moved to one of the secondary, peripheral locker areas?’
I explained how I’d checked them all against the detailed and up-to-date inventory listings to confirm they were actually missing.
‘So forty plus saboteurs probably survived the Kraken attack and our subsequent shift into this world,’ she replied, sitting back in her chair while she considered the implications.
Within moments she’d come to the same conclusions the Captain and I had reached, that while the traitors could theoretically have travelled through into this world with the ship, it would’ve been immensely difficult for them to stay hidden for any length of time. Even the Lamphrey with its ability to become invisible had been spotted eventually, after all.
As soon as it had become clear that Ariel had come to the same conclusions, I explained how our next concern was to anticipate what this well armed and well equipped group of traitors might aim to do next, if as we suspected they were trapped in the Expanse, to which end the Captain would like the three of us to meet later on this evening to share our ideas and try to come up with some way to mitigate them.
‘I begin to see why you’d forgotten about your promotion,’ she commented, when I finally finished explaining what the Captain had asked for.
‘Yes, precisely,’ I replied. ‘But before either of us can turn our attention to that particular kettle of fish, I need your help to get me into one of those marine suits, and then off the ship to wherever it is they’d like me to demonstrate its abilities.’
CHAPTER 38 – EX MACHINA
While the marines would all normally use an automated Esquire to help them don their marine suit exo-skeleton, they only worked well once the suit had been set up and calibrated for the specific user. As such there was a lot of tweaking and fiddling necessary to get me into it and then calibrate it properly for my height, weight, limb length and level of strength, but with Ariel’s help after an hour I had it on and was able to walk up and down the locker room without tripping over my own feet or springing from the ground every time I tried to take a step.
Now I was in it and the skeleton was calibrated for my specific use I’d be able to step into the Esquire unit next time and have the entire thing on or off in under a minute, but these units were fairly unforgiving in the hands of a novice, so it was worth putting the time in to get everything millimetre accurate the first time.
It was going well but we still had all the weapons, amour and other equipment to fit and adjust when the Captain hailed us from the bridge, to let us know that the ship would shortly be sailing to an area where it would be safe for the demonstration to take place, and to ask whether we could be ready in forty five minutes or so.
This was a little sooner than I’d anticipated, but I gave Ariel the nod to confirm I thought it was manageable, and then we got down to work.
The armour plates were really just for show during the demo, but once installed they made the marine suits seem considerably larger and more powerful, they also had the added benefit of making it that little bit harder for a suit’s wearer to accidentally hurt themselves, so it wasn’t much of a debate as to whether or not to use them.
For the weapons, I then opted for a light machine gun to be mounted on each arm, along with a mortar on my left arm and smaller version of an Arc Cannon on my right. A standard flame thrower was also built into both forearm weapon systems, good for about thirty seconds of continuous usage, the default setting for this was rear facing, but with the press of a single button on the corresponding forearm this could be changed to one of several other positions including forward facing.
To finish off all the suits were fitted with power gauntlets, that had a kinetic punch and spike system built into the knuckles that would automatically double the force of the already massively powerful suit punch, while at the same time extending a two inch spike from each knuckle at the maximum impact point of the punch, and finally again as standard each suit came fitted with a broad bayone
t attachment fitted to the right thigh for right handed users as well as a mace attachment for the off-hand fitted to the left thigh.
Getting all these bits and pieces equipped to the suit was a relatively quick and painless process, but getting to the point where I could confidently use each weapon without having to stop and think about it for half a minute was another. The bayonet and mace were particularly tricky as you had to not only grab them in the right place you also had to use a specific hand gesture to get them to auto-deploy rather than just be released into the users hand.
In the hands of an expert this meant a marine could simply grab his bayonet with one hand and fit it manually to his other hand, or he could just have his suit automatically attach it to the hand he placed next to it. In the hands of a novice such as myself this meant dropping my bayonet a dozen times before I finally remembered what the correct auto-deploy gesture was.
But our time was up, and rather than forcing the Captain to hail me again I wanted to make my way to the bridge in order to give the city officials a close up look at the suit before I descended to the ground to deliver the demonstration proper.
The final piece of the suit to fit was of course the helmet, which not only had a built in communications system and breather unit, it also had the one item of marine suit equipment that I was intimately familiar with, the lensing visor, which I’d worked with the marines to help re-design after I’d nearly knocked myself out with the previous model.
By all rights as it weighed in at nearly five hundred pounds the marine suit should’ve sounded like a bulldozer being driven through the corridors of the ship. Even though the capacitors, servo-motors and articulators were entirely silent, the sheer bulk of the thing should’ve made every footfall echo and reverberate around the ship, but the capacity for stealth was also of paramount importance to the marines, so as I walked to the bridge with Ariel I created no more disturbance than I did while walking about the place normally in a pair of heavy duty boots. We did run into a couple of Bradbury’s men at one point, who stopped and stared in a slightly slack jawed manner as we approached them until both Ariel and I wished them a good afternoon, at which point they somehow managed to shuffle into a cabin’s doorway in order to allow us to more easily get past.