“Alright,” Leonard said, uncertainly. “Aye aye, Commander.”
Nathen pressed his palm to the hull and pulled himself along, slow as an alligator crawl. Lights shined to his left from the mobile headquarters’ viewports. A sea of solar panels from the station lay to his right, giving him the impression of a rising tide. Nathen took one more handhold and steadied himself, looking around. He should be right outside Haven Alpha's communications room now. This was it.
“Anything yet?” Leonard asked, helpfully. “Do you really think you’re going to find our mole out there?”
The commander turned his head, searching. “No, but I know what I’m going to find.”
“What’s that?”
Nathen turned his head about in his outdated helmet. Hearing his own breathing in his ear brought on a feeling of claustrophobia. The hull appeared clear as Nathen scanned from left to right.
And then he saw it. Nathen’s eyes came to a rest on the black, mushroom-shaped mass before him. Five grappling claws sat anchored against the hull, holding the object down against the armor plating.
“It’s a Yew spy probe.”
Nathen pulled himself up close to the alien hull-hugger as Leonard stammered over the radio.
“What!? How is that possible? We never got close enough for any Yew ships to attach it!”
“Yes, we did,” Nathen said. “I'll explain in a second. Let me get a good look at this thing.”
He pulled himself up very carefully, calmly searching the surface for a seam or breach. It had a layer of organic shielding to protect it from solar conditions and spikes of artificial gravity from its target ship. Nathen knew that the shielding would also hide it from any attempts to find it. The umbrella-like design was a standard Yew Alliance stealth model that deflected most attempts to locate it. If he could get past the shielding somehow, he could deactivate the device before it caused more damage.
First things first, Nathen thought, reaching behind him and unclipping the datatech computer he’d commandeered. Disabling its defense.
Nathen unfolded the datatech and switched it on, clamping it to the hull where he could see both screens while he worked. He ran his gauntlet along the probe’s surface, feeling for any kind of uneven-ness in its almost flawless shape. Even a slight gap would indicate the presence of an access panel which, when pressed with proper strength, would retract the shielding for access to the more vulnerable systems. So far, Nathen wasn’t having much luck.
“I’m having a little trouble finding the exterior controls. Leonard, why don’t you make yourself useful and…”
Nathen heard his radio pop and distort his own voice. Nathen instantly had an uneasy feeling. He reached up and popped a palm against the side of his helmet, wondering if the radio got jarred loose.
“Come in, Haven. Do you still read me?”
No answer. Nathen, momentarily distracted from his task, tried again to hail those on board. “I say again, this is-“
“-ommander Knight! Do you copy!? We have a situation!”
Nathen glanced at Haven Alpha's hull, wondering what was going on inside.
“I read you, Leon. Just barely. My radio is fighting through heavy distortion. I may lose you. What’s going on in there?”
“We’re getting a return signal on the hacker channel! Yew origin!”
Nathen turned back to the probe, realizing the final countdown had just begun.
“Then we’re out of time,” he said, grimly touching his datatech on the hull. “If the Yew are responding to their inside man, then that means their preparations are complete, and they’re about to make their-”
MOVE!
Nathen grabbed hold of the probe and snapped his body sideways just as his datatech disintegrated into glowing plastech shards. There was no sound in vacuum, except for Nathen’s suddenly racing heart as surprise and alarm caught up with the warning of his sixth sense. Nathen twisted around, helmet turning toward the black of space. It took him a heartbeat to find the source of the attack. Fifty feet away, four extra vehicular space suits were floating toward him, spurting small jets of air from maneuvering packs. The nearest one lowered his triangular cell blaster and pointed at Nathen, obviously shouting something into his radio to his comrades. Nathen felt his adrenaline-charged blood turn hot as he clenched a gloved fist in rage.
Traitors!
The four attackers boosted closer as Nathen’s suit radio screeched in his ear.
“Knight!? KNIGHT!? What’s going on out th-”
Nathen reached down to the lanyard and switched off the radio. He needed silence. He deactivated the gauntlet and floated, untethered, next to the spy probe. Two of the attackers had full cell blasters, while the other two had cell pistols. Probably supplied by their friends, the Yew. Whoever was coming at Nathen was smart enough to use weapons that would have lower recoil in null-gravity, but stupid enough to engage him in space at all. Their maneuvering packs allowed them to gust their way through space, but it made them rigid and inflexible. Nathen had no guns; his Denchura was inside his suit, under his uniform. But he had plenty of weapons.
The Alpha reached down to his work belt—calmly, not rushing so his body twisted unnecessarily—and lifted a heavy five pound hull wrench weightlessly from his tool belt. From his other side he pulled out a canister of hull micropuncture sealant. Using the wrench, and fighting the weightless factor, Nathen snapped off the nozzle that kept the sealant from spewing out like a geyser.
A blaster bolt smashed against Haven Alpha's armored hull a foot to his right, detonating its power in a burst of dazzling gold. Nathen brought his head up—again, slowly as to not flip—and noticed the first attacker had closed the distance to just twelve feet. The triangular cell blaster was glowing as the man on the other end charged for another bolt. He was trying to get Nathen to dodge away from the probe, so he wouldn’t hit it.
Nathen squared his shoulders and chucked the hull wrench at his attacker with a twist of his wrist.
Past the glow of the cell blaster’s muzzle Nathen saw a look of shock behind the faceplate just before Nathen’s projectile smashed into the helmet. The wrench bounced off and hurled into space while the victim whirled backwards, spinning head over heels. The cell blaster floated away as the attacker reached up to his helmet, which was venting air through its cracked faceplate as it spun the traitor around in a never ending pinwheel. Gloved hands tried in vain to hold back the precious air that crystallized in the vacuum. The second the first attacker fell back, the two cell pistoleers slid in, trying to draw a bead on their target as they moved.
Nathen lifted the aerosol canister of micropuncture sealant, pointed it down past his own legs, and squeezed his index finger down on the stud. Sealant gushed from the end in unregulated spray, propelling the commander backwards up the hull. The two attackers adjusted their trajectory in surprise, watching as their prey accelerated up the hull like a man-sized rocket. Nathen let his finger up, using the helmet’s rear-view mirror to try and steer himself as he unleashed controlled bursts from the canister. Pale energy bolts pocked the hull as the expanding cloud of sealant billowed out behind Nathen.
In seconds, he had built the distance between him and his attackers to thirty feet. Something glinted in the suit's rear-view mirror. Nathen turned his head and saw the station docking pier rushing toward him. He released the stud and tossed the canister between his legs, curling his knees into his chest and flipping over. Now he was falling feet first. Nathen twitched his thumbs and activated both gauntlets, grabbing hold of the hull and stopping his flight with a jolt. The second he stopped, Nathen was off again, climbing backwards across the hull with his legs outstretched behind him. That was Marine training. Facing the enemy, even when moving backwards, while minimizing your profile, establishing what was up and down relative to you, not your surroundings. Nathen’s attackers had no such training. They jetted after him, fully upright, constantly trying to keep their feet pointed toward the hull, even if it ruined their aim.
; Nathen disappeared into the crisscrossing scaffold of the docking pier before his pursuers could get a decent shot off. The two cell pistol wielders exchanged something over their radios, then moved in to finish Nathen off. One floated back, scanning the pier just within shooting range. The other drifted in until his boots touched the hull and clamped on. The traitor walked, one step at a time, scanning left to right, searching the top of Haven Alpha’s hull and watching the docking clamps for any sign of movement. He expected Nathen to be behind one of them. He was wrong.
To the attacker, Nathen was above. To Nathen, his attacker was to his right. Hiding behind the “horizontal” beam, playing to the zero gravity once again, totally threw his enemy off. The moment the second traitor walked by, Nathen swung down like a door on hinges and hooked the tool belt’s welding torch—spitting and burning—onto the man’s oxygen tank. Nathen swung back against the crossbeam as the traitor felt the tug and turned his head, still magnetically clamped to the ship’s hull. It took the welding torch three seconds to cut through the pressurized oxygen tank. Chemistry did the rest.
Nathen flinched as the welding torch ignited the oxygen and exploded the suit's air in a popping burst. The explosion lasted only a second, and burned out as soon as it dispersed into vacuum. Suit effectively destroyed, the traitor died almost instantly. His friend, hovering a few feet away, saw the blast but didn’t see Nathen as the Elite Stellar Commando swung around the other side of the scaffold and leveled his emergency piton gun. There was a sharp, silent snap as Nathen pulled the trigger. The piton covered the short distance, trailing behind a thin but strong cable, and smacked into the man’s chest. The traitor felt the piton sink into his chest, then looked up just as Nathen slipped behind the scaffold, braced his legs, and shoved off.
The cable snapped tight and the traitor whiplashed at the end of the line as all of Nathen’s inertia transferred through the line to him. Unable to do anything but throw his arms up in front of him, the attacker smashed into the scaffold, hips first, and tumbled until he smashed again into Haven's hull. The man writhed in space, both in pain and disoriented, until Nathen retracted the cable and snapped it again. This time, he didn’t brace his legs, and the two went flying at each other. The last thing the traitor saw was a screwdriver spiking through his faceplate as the two collided.
Two bodies struck and tumbled off each other. Nathen dropped the piton gun and managed to right himself by grabbing onto one of the docking clamps. The traitor drifted motionlessly off down the hull, a trail of crystallized air and blood trailing from his cracked faceplate. Nathen watched the body go, inhaling deeply to catch his breath, and turned his head just in time to look right into the heat flash as a blaster bolt detonated right next to his helmet. Nathen flinched and pushed himself down against Haven's hull as another bolt speared through space, practically singeing the shoulder of his suit. The fourth and final attacker kept his distance, firing his angry yellow cell blaster from twenty feet away. Nathen rotated himself toward the enemy, narrowly dodging another bolt that would have hit his calf.
Nathen was in the open, with no cover on either side of him that he could reach in the next few seconds. The cell blaster charged, then flashed, sending another spear of power straight at the ESC’s face.
There was no training for what Nathen did next. Nathen snapped his hand up, splayed his fingers out and activated the magnetic palm of his gauntlet. The blaster bolt speared dead center of Nathen’s outstretched hand… and burst. The second the magnetically encapsulated power met with Nathen’s electromagnetically charged gauntlet, the bolt polarized, and the energy, instead of piercing like it was supposed to, detonated in all directions.
The gauntlet shattered, and Nathen felt the shock of power travel down his arm like an electric charge. His hand screamed in pain as the heat from the broken bolt seared against his fingers. When the flash faded, Nathen’s gauntlet was shredded and his glove was breached… but his hand was intact. Shutting down the pain, Nathen pulled his knees into his chest, used his remaining gauntlet to aim, and launched himself straight at his attacker.
The traitor didn’t see him coming. After the last bolt burst, he’d lowered his Yew cell blaster to check what damage he’d done, only to see his would-be victim coming right at him. The man panicked and snapped the cell blaster up, which started to spin him and threw his aim off. The golden bolt that lanced through space missed. Nathen held his arms out to his sides preparing for a flying embrace and slammed into his enemy, hands immediately latching on.
The traitor had the wind knocked out of him as the cell blaster left his hands, tumbling away and out of reach. Nathen adjusted his grip, holding the man by the shoulders of his suit, and pulled himself in, driving with his knee. The impact was muffled, and the traitor countered with an elbow to the side of Nathen’s helmet. The blow jarred him, but the old suit held together. Next, the attacker reached out and tried to grab hold of the ESC’s helmet clasp. The commando stopped the traitor’s arm and shoved with both legs, allowing himself to float away from his attacker. As Nathen tried to orient himself, the traitor looked about for the cell blaster. He spotted the glow of its charge, now nearly a dozen meters away. Rather than chase it, the traitor reached behind his back and pulled out a space combat knife, which was little more than an edged spike. Then he jetted after Nathen.
The Alpha managed to position himself to meet the attacker’s assault, feet first. Unlike in gravity, where you needed your feet to stand on, here you could use them to create a greater distance advantage, long enough to draw your gun or a weapon. The traitor found that out when he went to stab Nathen’s chest and found himself well out of reach at the end of Nathen’s legs.
For a few seconds, the dance went on with the attacker trying to get past Nathen’s legs, with the commando just maneuvering or shifting slightly and thwarting him. Finally, the traitor wrapped an arm around Nathen’s right leg, pulling himself closer and holding them both steady.
Just like Nathen wanted.
The traitor’s head snapped back as Nathen cracked his heel into the helmet, now anchored enough to do so without flying off. As the traitor recovered, Nathen swung himself forward and grabbed the for the man’s wrist. Suddenly the attacker moved with unforeseen speed and stabbed down, barely missing Nathen’s neck and spearing the knife through his oxygen hose. Nathen saw the knife cut his vital oxygen supply open, and sure enough, air stared hissing out of his suit. He had less than a minute before his air depleted.
The attacker pulled his knife back and went for another strike. Hand still burning, Nathen snapped out and seized the knifeman’s wrist. Before the traitor could think, Nathen snaked his right arm around the back of his helmet and secured him in a headlock under his arm. Starting to suck air harder, Nathen shifted his grip until his fingers reached the jet controls on his attacker’s gauntlet. Nathen felt the switch for the main air jets and squeezed.
Air shot from the traitor’s maneuvering pack, hurtling the two intertwined men along like a rock from a sling. Nathen was flying backwards, struggling to see where they were going in his rear-view mirror while fighting to keep them straight against the motions of his struggling and unwilling passenger. Haven Alpha passed by on their left, and then they were travelling parallel to the umbilical toward the station. It was fast and chaotic, but Nathen knew where he was going. He saw a glimpse of glowing red in the rear-view mirror. Getting close. Fast. Nathen tightened his headlock and braced himself as the traitor saw what was coming and thrashed madly and screamed although nobody could hear.
The two men smashed into the bulkhead of Orbit Angel, and the traitor took it, face first. The plastech faceplate shattered into pieces as Nathen whiplashed back first against the hull, knocking the wind out of his flattened lungs. Though Nathen was bracing for it, slamming into the station still hurt, and he saw more stars than he had expected.
The two rolled along the hull, and Nathen finally lost his grip. The body of the traitor kept going, drifting up toward th
e axis of the station. Nathen barely had time to kick away from the body to aim himself toward the hull. He slammed his right hand down on the hull and yanked his shoulder as his remaining gauntlet clamped on. Nathen cried out, but in his suit’s draining oxygen it only came out as a shrill mewl. Nathen looked around as the heat started draining from his suit, faceplate frosting on the edges. Just when he thought he was lost, Nathen saw the outline of the airlock. Climbing with just one gauntlet, Nathen hauled himself along, as quick as he dared, as his heated blood started to feel like liquid ice. His left hand burned against the stinging vacuum as the shredded glove let heat escape.
His head was swimming as he pulled himself into the airlock. He pulled himself along the ceiling and kicked the close switch, hand on the verge of blistering. The airlock slammed closed, pressurized, and then dumped him on the floor as the gravity switched on. Nathen fumbled with cold hands until he found the release clamps for his helmet and popped it off. He lay for a moment, sitting on his hands and knees, sucking in shallow breath after shallow breath until the air came easier. When the pressure in his chest eased, Nathen started shedding gear, stripping off the tool belt and the remains of his gauntlets. The space suit came off in pieces it wasn’t meant to, torn and ravaged by combat until Nathen staggered to his feet in his White Sun paramilitary uniform. He walked to the inner airlock and hit the switch. The inner airlock opened, and Nathen leaned against the frame, eyes closed and breathing steadily as cycled air from the station’s living quarters flowed in.
The comm. unit chimed.
The commander reached inside his uniform and pulled his comm. unit out, switching it on.
“Knight here.”
“Sir!” Leonard's voice came through, clearly. “I thought I’d lost you! What happened?”
“Nothing,” Nathen said, swallowing as his skin itched from the cold.
Leonard sounded worried. “Did you get the probe off?”
Nathen shook his head, eyes still closed. “No. Never mind that. It’s too late to make a difference. We’ve got bigger problems now.”
Prime Alpha (Planetary Powers Book 1) Page 46