by G J Ogden
The link remained open, but there was nothing more to say. Finally squeezing some blood back into his fingers, Sterling shifted around in the crawlspace and began to slither toward reactor control. The working spaces inside the cavernous interior of the ship were cramped even for someone not wearing commando armor. For Sterling, moving forward was like trying to squeeze dried-up old toothpaste out of its tube. Eventually, after ten minutes spent forcing himself through a space barely wider than an average human body, Sterling reached the hatch just inside the reactor control room.
“I’m at the exit hatch,” Sterling told Banks through their link.
“At least you can open that one using the emergency operation lever,” Banks replied. However, his first officer remained as tightly wound-up as when they’d last seen each other. “I’ll order the squads to get ready.”
“Just listen for the boom,” Sterling replied, maneuvering himself into a position where he could get his hand around the release lever. Checking his computer, he saw that the area immediately outside was clear. On the one hand, he was glad because it meant he’d meet no resistance. On the other hand, it meant that Emissary McQueen and the rest of her unit had already progressed inside. Sterling was playing catch-up and he couldn’t afford to come in last.
Yanking the handle down, the hatch opened with a weighty thump. Sterling winced, hoping the sharp sound wasn’t as loud outside as it felt in the confines of the crawlspace. Hurriedly slipping out of the maintenance hatch, he immediately drew his pistol in case a warrior suddenly rushed in to confront him. He swept his pistol across all three exits, expecting a warrior to pop up at any moment, like a target on a shooting range, but no-one came.
“I’m inside,” Sterling said through the neural link.
“I’m waiting for that boom, Captain…” Again, Sterling caught a flash of pent-up energy from his first officer’s mind.
Sterling holstered his pistol and removed two plasma grenades from their stows on his armor. He set the grenades to a three-second fuse, then got into position in the middle of the door.
“Here it comes…”
Suddenly, an alert klaxon began sounding. Sterling recognized the unique tone immediately, along with the visceral and familiar chill it sent down his spine. It was the abandon ship alarm.
“Warning, reactor containment failing. Critical breach in thirty minutes,” the dreary, lifeless voice of the Vanguard’s gen thirteen AI intoned. “All hands abandon ship. Repeat, all hands abandon ship.”
Sterling cursed and tried to focus his mind to come up with a contingency for his plan. However, the decision whether or not to proceed had already been made for him. Moments after the alarm sounded, the door to the reactor control room swooshed open. Two of the dozen Sa’Nerran warriors who were standing guard outside stepped into the threshold and stopped suddenly. The warriors’ egg-shaped yellow eyes locked onto Sterling and they began to raise their weapons. However, Sterling’s reactions had been quicker. He dove to the deck as plasma raced through the air, missing him on both sides by the slimmest of margins. Yet the Sa’Nerra were not the only ones to have engaged their enemy. Crossing the path of the plasma blasts, travelling in the opposite direction, were the two grenades that Sterling had armed and thrown. And unlike the alien warriors, Sterling’s aim had been true.
Chapter 12
The scorpion and the frog
The plasma grenades detonated, consuming both heavy repeating plasma turrets in a fierce explosion. The shockwave from the blast propelled Sterling further into the reactor control section, though he was spared injury due to the fact he’d already dived to the deck. Suddenly, he felt a thump to his back and he flipped over, guard raised, expecting to see a Sa’Nerran warrior bearing down on him, serrated half-moon blade in hand. It quickly became apparent that the two warriors who had fired at him were no longer a threat. The leg of one of aliens was resting next to Sterling’s head. It had been blasted off just above the knee. Sterling sat up and realized that more alien body parts – some identifiable and some not – lay scattered all around him.
“Mercedes, the gates are open,” Sterling called out through his link to Commander Banks.
“I heard the boom, so we’re already on the way,” Banks replied, as the sound of heavy plasma weapons filtered through the door. “Did you hear the reactor overload warning?”
“I heard it.” Sterling pushed himself to his feet and drew his plasma pistol. “Now we switch to a straight-up power play, whether we like it or not.”
Sterling was then distracted by the thump of alien boots heading his way. “We’ve got more company…” he called out to Banks in his mind, while aiming his pistol toward one of the three exits to the room. He couldn’t be certain which exit the bootsteps were coming from, or even if they were coming from all three corridors at the same time. Sterling lucked out and a second later an alien warrior ran directly into his line of fire. He squeezed the trigger, blasting the warrior in the neck and practically decapitating it. However, he barely had time to take a breath before more had stormed along the corridors, spotted him and raised their weapons.
Sterling ran for cover, firing blind as he did so. Plasma raced past him and he was hit to his back and knocked flat. The smell of molten armor plating told him that the blast had penetrated, but he felt no pain. Spinning over, he was confronted with a cacophony of alien hisses, like a hundred angry snakes. However, the unique, waspish vocalizations of the Sa’Nerra were soon drowned out by more plasma blasts. These sounds Sterling also recognized. They were Homewrecker heavy plasma rifles.
Sterling stayed down as plasma crisscrossed above him. The thick, metallic odor of burning alien flesh soon saturated the room. However, mixed in amongst the alien dead, he could also see two commandoes and two of the robotic Obsidian Soldiers.
“Warning, reactor containment failing. Critical breach in twenty-five minutes,” announced the voice of the Vanguard’s AI. “All hands abandon ship. Repeat, all hands abandon ship.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Sterling muttered, pulling himself off the deck and collecting one of the discarded Homewreckers. Banks then appeared through the acrid smoke and dropped to one knee by his side.
“Two human and two metal casualties,” she reported, confirming what Sterling had already seen, “but we need to move fast to maintain our momentum.” She slapped a fresh cell into her weapon. Sterling saw that the power level was set to maximum.
“All roads lead to reactor control,” said Sterling, checking the cell in his own rifle. The commando who had owned it had barely gotten a shot off before he was killed. Sterling could see the man on the deck a few meters away. The soldier’s face was burned off, not that Sterling would have recognized him anyway. “The central corridor goes directly to the control center. The two to either side branch off to the right about twenty meters in.”
“Scanners show no more warriors heading this way,” said Banks. She was peering down at the computer on her left forearm.
“The rest of them will be holed up in the main control room,” said Sterling, glancing at the display on his first officer’s wrist. “It’s a strong defensive position and McQueen knows that. We won’t get inside without taking losses.”
“Then our metal friends can go first,” said Banks. “We split into three squads and come at them from all angles.”
Sterling nodded. “Agreed, but no grenades,” he added, with a cautionary tone. “We start blowing stuff up in there, we may end up taking the ship out ourselves.” He tapped Banks’ Homewrecker rifle. “And you’ll need to dial that down to eight,” he continued. “Otherwise, we’re going to have a containment breach far sooner than twenty-five minutes.”
Banks cursed but immediately reduced the power level on her weapon. Then she frowned and turned to Sterling. “What’s to stop the Sa’Nerra just blasting a hole in the reactor housing?” she asked. “It would be a far quicker way to cripple the Vanguard.”
Sterling hadn’t considered
this. “I guess we just have to hope that McQueen’s human instinct for self-preservation is as strong as ever,” he suggested. “Either way, we need to make sure we don’t do the job for her.”
Banks nodded. “I’ll order our remaining forces to dial-down their weapons too, and to stow all grenades,” she said, returning her eyes to the corridors ahead of them.
Sterling moved over to one of the dead aliens and stripped its half-moon blade from its belt. “You might need one of these too,” he added, offering the weapon to Banks. “I have a feeling this fight is going to get personal.”
Banks took the weapon and hooked it to her belt. “I’m saving this for if we see McQueen in there,” she added, with a touch more bite. “If she thinks she can take out the Vanguard she has another thing coming.”
Sterling grabbed another serrated blade and stowed it on his own armor, while Banks communicated the orders to the rest of the squad. Sterling’s remaining forces then split into three, each section commanded by a human. The central column was led by Sterling, with Banks and four Obsidian Soldiers. The senior surviving commando directed the second squad while Lieutenant Razor took command of the third, which had already taken up position, ready to storm the fort.
“Our objective is to take and secure the command station inside reactor control,” Sterling called out to his waiting troops. He was forced to shout the words, since the robotic soldiers were incapable of neural comms. “Know that the Sa’Nerra will fight with everything they have, even using their bare hands if they have to,” he added, trying to meet the eyes of each remaining human combatant. “We have to do the same. We have to be more savage than the enemy. More brutal. We give them no quarter, is that understood?”
There was a cry of, “Aye Captain,” from Banks, Razor and the commandoes, but the Obsidian Soldiers remained ominously silent.
“Obsidian Soldiers, do you understand?” Sterling called out, wanting to make doubly-sure the unpredictable AI warriors had heard him.
“We will comply,” came the deadpan response from a solitary Obsidian Soldier.
Sterling examined the robot that had answered his question with much closer scrutiny. He was sure it was the same machine that had asked him the raft of bizarre questions earlier. A thought popped into his mind. Is this machine their leader? he asked himself, unsure of how the hierarchy of Obsidian Soldiers worked. However, there was no time to find out. He had to trust that the machine had spoken for all of the robotic soldiers and that they were prepared to execute his orders. Sterling then felt a link form in his mind from Lieutenant Shade. It was weak, which didn’t surprise him considering that his weapons officer was half the ship away from their position.
“Captain, we’re pushing into the CIC now, but the Sa’Nerra appear to be withdrawing.” As with Banks, he could feel Shade’s emotions through their link. The thrill of the hunt came through the connection clearly, despite his weapons officer’s typically staid verbal delivery.
“That will be because they are expecting this ship to blow up in twenty minutes,” Sterling replied. It was merely an assumption, but one that fit the facts. “Continue your attack and secure the command center. We’re about to assault reactor control and avert the breach.”
“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Shade replied. Sterling was about to tap his neural interface to close the link, but Shade had not finished. “There’s one other thing, sir,” the weapons officer added. This time, Sterling could sense an unusual level of anxiety from her. He frowned and tapped his link to allow Banks to monitor. “During our initial assault, one of my commandoes was taken out by an Obsidian Soldier.”
Banks’ head immediately snapped toward Sterling and the two officer’s locked eyes.
“Was it just a case of friendly fire or something more, Lieutenant?” Sterling asked. Shade’s statement had left that element sounding ambiguous. However, the dread feeling he was getting through their link told Sterling that there was more to her report.
“I can’t be certain, sir, but it looked intentional,” Shade replied, coolly. “The commando was out in front, moving on an enemy position,” Shade went on. “He was blocking the robot’s line of sight. Then I saw the machine fire and the commando fell.” Sterling cursed then cast a wary eye toward the robot closest to him – the one he suspected to be the leader. “The Obsidian Soldier just stepped over the body of the commando and continued its attack, like nothing had happened.”
Sterling sighed and returned his gaze to his first officer. “Understood, Lieutenant, we’ll bear this in mind,” Sterling replied. “Keep the Obsidian Soldiers out in front from now on. That way if another incident occurs, the cause will be more clear-cut.”
“Aye sir, already done,” Shade replied. “I’ll inform you when the CIC is ours.”
The link went dead. Had Shade been a regular Fleet officer, Sterling would have expected her to voice concern about pushing deeper into the ship, when its reactor was on the verge of going critical. A sensible Captain would have ordered his remaining crew to proceed to the docking garages and commandeer whatever ships or shuttles they could find to escape in. However, Shade was no ordinary officer – she was an Omega officer. The thought of retreat would never have crossed her mind, nor would the prospect of defeat. His weapons officer’s confidence and zeal for battle had invigorated Sterling’s own thirst for combat. And like his fight-happy lieutenant, he wasn’t going to back down either.
“Assault teams move out on my command,” Sterling called out. He then made the important addendum to his plan. “Obsidian Soldiers, take point.”
The stomping sound of heavy metal feet approached Sterling from the rear. Four Obsidian Soldiers drew alongside, though each of them paused before crossing in front of Sterling or Banks.
“I have a question,” said the mechanical soldier Sterling had identified as the robot army’s possible leader.
“Your question can wait, soldier,” Sterling hit back. “Get into position.”
The Obsidian Soldier did not move. “Are we to go first, because we are expendable?” the machine asked, ignoring Sterling’s order.
“You are to go first because those are my orders,” Sterling replied, standing tall and peering at the optical scanners in the robot’s dome-shaped cranial section. “Now move out.”
The machine remained for several seconds, the indicators on its mechanical frame and head blinking wildly as it did so. Then without another word, the Obsidian Soldier complied and moved to the front of the squad. Its three robot companions followed close behind.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Commander Banks, through their neural link.
“So do I,” Sterling replied, again shooting his first officer a concerned look. “But we can’t take reactor control without those machines.”
The two officers set off in pursuit of the robots, leaving a larger than normal gap between themselves and the Obsidian Soldiers.
“When we’ve taken reactor control and secured the ship, what then?” Banks wondered, this time keeping her eyes fixed on the mechanical soldiers ahead of them.
“Let’s cross that rickety-ass bridge when we come to it,” Sterling replied.
The truth was he wasn’t yet sure what to do about the Obsidian Soldiers. Even with the Sa’Nerra defeated and the Vanguard secured, it would be impossible to crew the mighty dreadnaught with only the handful of human crewmembers at his disposal. Griffin’s assurances still gave him some faith that the robots would continue to act in his best interest, rather than their own. However, the defiant attitude of the lead robot soldier weighed heavily on his mind.
“Have you ever heard the story of the scorpion and the frog?” Sterling said to his first officer through their link.
Banks frowned at him. “That sounds like a pretty weird cheese dream to me,” she replied.
“It’s an old fable,” Sterling went on. Normally, he’d have smiled back at his first officer’s humorous comeback, but his mind was still preoccupied with the prospect of
a robot rebellion. “The scorpion wants to cross a river but it can’t swim, so it asks a frog to carry it over. The frog is naturally worried that the scorpion will sting it, but the scorpion promises that it won’t.”
“Still sounds like a weird cheese dream to me,” said Banks.
“The frog agrees to help, but half-way across the river the scorpion stings the frog,” Sterling continued, ignoring Banks’ quips. “As they’re drowning the frog asks why the scorpion did it, considering that they’ll both die. And the scorpion replies that it couldn’t help it. It’s in its nature.”
“And you say that I have a dark sense of humor,” said Banks, again scowling at Sterling.
“It’s not a joke, Mercedes, it’s a warning,” Sterling replied. Banks finally appeared to take note of Sterling’s severe tone and stopped making light of his story.
“A warning about what?” Banks asked, suddenly looking more apprehensive.
The forward group of Obsidian Soldiers halted near the exit of the corridor and prepared to begin the assault. Sterling and Banks stopped a few meters behind them and dropped to a crouch.
“All living things are compelled to act according to their nature, Mercedes” Sterling said, keeping a watchful eye on the machines. “Especially when their lives are on the line.”
Banks’ scowl was then aimed at the back of an Obsidian Soldier’s head. “So what’s in their nature?”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Sterling replied, his gaze aimed firmly at the inquisitive robot leader.
Banks then tapped her neural interface and was briefly in conversation with another member of the crew. She checked her computer while she was speaking through the link then turned to Sterling.
“The others are in position,” she reported, adjusting her hold on the powerful Homewrecker rifle she was carrying. “But whoever is in the control room has set up a scanner jammer. All we’re reading is static.”