Onyx Javelin

by Steve Wheeler

  Marko and Glint watched the squadrons of Skuas, and the few Mauls, pulling away from their launch platforms and moving out ahead of the Thorn.

  'I am seeing numerous mid-sized Urchins, Marko.'

  'Yeah, me too, buddy. If they look like they are going to try and land on us, we smash them.'

  Glint nodded enthusiastically. 'Good! I do not like Urchins, Marko. I did not like being onboard Basalt when we were inside Zawgyi. It felt very wrong.'

  'Know what you mean, Glint. I am still not sure what Stephine sees in them. Could it be that they were creations of the octopoids, like her?'

  'There may be truth in what you say, Father,' Glint commented. 'Maybe she had a hand in developing them?'

  'Don't know about that, but I do know that one is coming right at us!'

  'I see it!'

  Marko manipulated the controls, and the hydraulics pushed the weapon pod further out from the hull of the Thorn. He then swung it towards the large Urchin racing straight at them as Glint pulled the trigger on the three-barrelled linear accelerator. He stitched a ring of holes around the creature's centre as Marko triggered another short-barrelled weapon, firing a thin-walled container of gel which seconds later impacted, tearing the core out of the Urchin.

  Around the inside of the transparent dome in front of them, more threat icons appeared. Marko muttered, 'Shit! This is not going to be easy. Why are there so many of the bastards? This place is crawling with them.'

  As Glint started firing at another, he said, 'Crawling? They would need something solid to actually crawl upon! Flying silently through vacuum with a steam-powered rocket up their arses would be a more apt description, Marko. Your speech is still so messed up! But yes, I agree there are a great deal of them.'

  'All crew: this is navigation. We are fifteen minutes away from the optimum jump point in Ll. Stand by for deceleration to allow the queen to pass as we go into the LP. You will get a one-minute warning.'

  'Crew, this is tactical. We are seeing what looks like armoured spheres emerging from the asteroids. Do not engage them unless they attack your craf t or position. They are predators of the Urchins. And we can but hope that they are also interested in the killers.'

  'Glint! Twelve o'clock, 5020. Two killers. Mess them up a little, then switch back to the two Urchins at eleven o'clock low.'

  'Seen!'

  As Glint fired, then switched targets and fired again, Marko glanced up and down the length of the Thorn's outer hull, seeing that the other defensive pods were firing at different targets, and realised that the threat targets he could see on their HUDs were the ones intended for them to deal with.

  Swearing at himself for his stupidity, he sped himself up, told his system to link to Glint, and rapidly selected and prioritised targets, firing as fast as the ammunition feeds would allow. Even sped up he could not help himself and wondered why there were so many Urchins, predators and killers in the system. He selected the next ten targets, instructed his bioware to take care of them and opened a comms link to Stephine.

  'There are too many here, Stephine. Far too many for this to be natural. What do you know of this? Is this a breeding ground for the octopoids? Did your ancestors breed the Urchins for a purpose and then the predators to take care of them if their numbers rose too high?'

  He wondered why he had to wait so long for a reply. Eventually she said, 'Yes. The Urchins were created to guard the Lagrange points of the octopoid master race. They also created their food sources and the predators a long time ago. Yes, you are correct, Marko. Your questions are most astute; this system must be one of those long lost breeding areas.'

  Marko was about to comment, but Stephine continued. 'It has run amok because it is thousands of years since the octopoid young were harvested by my kind. We of Basalt were never supposed to come here. And that queen behind us will probably be the first to escape this system if we help her.'

  Glint yelled at him suddenly. 'Bloody hell, Marko!Snap out of whatever the hell you are doing. Look!'

  A smashed Maul was tumbling out of control on a collision course with the hull beside them.

  'Shit! Sorry!'

  He ramped up his vision, looking for the state of the two man crew.

  'Tactical! Pod nine. Maul on collision course with us!'

  The voice quickly said, 'Close your shields. Crew is dead. Missile impact in ten seconds!'

  Glint rapidly flicked the controls as the outer shields slid over their pod and their weapons were rapidly withdrawn back into their housings. He slowly counted out loud while looking at the HUD, as almost a minute later debris crashed against the hull all around them. He instructed the shield to open again just in time to see an Urchin land right on top of them.

  The creature opened its petals wide with dozens of mouths biting into the tough transparent graphene dome.

  Glint was yelling something at him, but Marko reacted with fear and extended the stubby barrel of the mortar out into the Urchin and fired twice. The first round exploded just as it emerged from the barrel, damaging the Urchin, but with the shockwave smashing back against the second round which caused it to detonate inside the barrel. Then the even greater back pressure destroyed the weapon and hurled the breech block and feed mechanism back into the armoured rear wall of the pod then bouncing back into Marko. He felt his lower legs being sheered away by the pieces and a huge concussion on his helmet and passed out with most of his suit integrity alarms going off.

  Glint looked horrified as blood sprayed out of Marko, until a few seconds later his father's combat suit sealed itself off. Glint's own suit was showing damage and there was also a fire starting in the mortar control panel. He decided that that was the least of his worries as the air pressure rapidly dropped inside the pod when the atmosphere was sucked out through the destroyed gun's barrel. The only plus side was that the air pressure was also giving a little push against the massive injured Urchin, which as soon as it was off the hull was hit again and again by the other pods.

  He reached across, looked at the blood-splattered emergency medical readouts on Marko's shoulder and saw that he was seriously injured, but that death was not imminent. He said out loud, 'Medic! Defence pod nine. Marko!Mortar destroyed.'

  He then looked out through the dome to see more Urchins on their way, so started firing on them, damaging them as much as he was able.

  Seconds later, the tactical officer and his team saw the situation and started reallocating targets to the other defensive positions, taking the pressure off Glint.

  He continued firing on Urchins and, on occasion, far distant killers, damaging them and making them easier prey for the dozens of the predator spheres that had joined the fight. He kept glancing across to Marko who remained alive, but was not conscious.

  The targets allocated to him started to taper off, so he quickly looked around outside, down the length of the Thorn, seeing the Skuas and one remaining Maul docking.

  'Crew! Navigation! One minute!'

  He looked out and forwards at the Urchin queen who was now only 500 metres away, followed closely by the heavily armed Fast Mover drones. Suddenly there appeared a strange light around her as the biologically driven wormhole generator was brought to power and then she flashed out of existence, followed a fraction of a second later by the Fast Movers.

  Glint let out a long breath as the Thorn also jumped. In the cold eternity of the jump his mind wandered for a split second and wished for warmth and a nice salty pork sandwich, and then they were through with the gas giant many hundreds of thousands of kilometres above them as the targets were allocated again. Glint started wearily firing, wishing that he could comfort his friend and father, but knowing that there was little he could do for him. An armoured clawed hand touched him gently on the shoulder. He turned to look up at the suited Q who said something that he could not make out. The Tengu smiled and nodded at him, mouthing something at him through the clear faceplate.

  'Your comms. No work. Marko to medical. You stay or go.' Glint
reached up and combat tapped on the Q's wrist. 'Stay. More fighting. Nothing can do for Marko. Better protect him and all crew from here.'

  The Q responded. 'Good. Weapon coming. Technician later. Damage everywhere.'

  The Q clapped him on the shoulder and turned away with two of them carrying Marko out with them, his shattered and torn lower legs laid on the stretcher beside his slow-breathing form.

  Glint looked out through the blood-splattered dome, searching for the queen, and frowned because he could not see her. In his HUD three targets came up and he spent a few moments hammering away at them with the smart ammunition ... his weapon controlled the timed detonation of it. Knowing almost precisely where the Urchins stored their antimatter, he fired deliberately at that area in the knowledge that even if the gel-like substance, in which the antimatter was stored, was not breeched, the creature would rapidly take itself out of the conflict to conserve itself.

  Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye he looked across to see a Q pulli.ng in a missile system. The individual looked at him, nodded, smiled, gave him a thumbs up, then reached down and snapped away the fast mounts of the wrecked mortar and piled them in a corner of the pod. The Tengu then locked the missile system's base in place. Before it continued, the extreme member of humanity pulled a small piece of kit from its belt and placed it against Glint's damaged helmet.

  'Hello, Glint! I am Suzie. You punch holes in them from a long distance and I shall blow them up from a short distance.' 'Pleased to know you. Nice to be able to talk again. Thanks. So is that Suzie with an i e or an e y?'

  'E y, Glint. Yes, I am female and you are so cute in real life! We have followed you since you were made by Marko.' Glint nodded. 'Do you know anything of him?'

  'Hold on ... yes, he is in medical. They are fitting a set of our legs to him. Rapid tech, also an augment to his digestive system and liver to produce the sugars needed. They say he will be up within hours. Kind of stupid what he did though. Point blank range shooting! Huh! Not smart.'

  Glint fired at another killer at long-range. 'It did not seem to have an effect, so he decided to wait until it got closer. He did not feel that he wanted anyone thinking that his father was stupid, but did not know quite how to comment. Instead, he asked, 'So where is that Zawgyi? She should be here by now.'

  Suzie finished locking the missile system in place and lowered the launch tubes until they lined up with the hole in the dome created by the destroyed mortar. She loaded two missiles into the tubes then replied, 'Your Stephine thinks that its wormhole generation may not be as fast as ours.'

  She moved forwards and taking a long cloth from her gear wiped the blood from the transparent dome in front of them.

  'There it is! Underneath us. I can see a lot more of Basalt. Looks like the queen has taken damage as a lot of her head petals are gone. Also one of the Fast Mover drones is missing.' Glint looked at his screens, zooming in on the image of Basalt and noting that the ship was barely being held by the queen. He was about to say something when the killer he had shot at earlier started to accelerate towards Zawgyi.

  He fired again and bright blue, dart-shaped missiles popped out of their tubes and floated away from the Thorn for a few seconds. They touched together before their engines ignited and they flashed quickly down towards the killer, rotating around a common centre and moving apart. A minute later the killer had been sliced into dozens of pieces.

  'Why is the weapon coming back?' Glint asked Suzie.

  'Refuelling of course, Glint. Good weapons should not be wasted, don't you agree?'

  Glint sent an image of the queen to the major. 'Boss. You seeing this?'

  'Yes, Glint.'

  'We should try and reboard. Maybe we could help break Basalt out?'

  'It is a good idea, but not now. We will be jumping again soon, I hope. Keep fighting.'

  Glint shrugged, looked for another target, and chewed a few holes in it with the reactive ammunition.

  Suzie spoke quickly. 'Ten o'clock high, 1500, Skua in trouble!'

  'Seen!'

  Glint slewed the guns around, firing at the Urchin that was just about to make contact with the stricken Skua. As the rounds exploded inside it, at the junction of its long spiky tail and head, it twitched massively and moved quickly away. Another was about to attack the Skua, so Glint fired a long burst starting at its tail and racking the slugs up through its centre core, trying to get as close as possible to the antimatter containment area, but not breeching it. The Urchin wrapped its tail around its head and rocketed away.

  'Crew, navigation. We have approximately twenty-five minutes to move across the LP to the optimum point for the jump. Lots of asteroids in the area. Expect Urchin predators to join the fight shortly.'

  More threat icons started to appear on the HUDs. Looking for the closest one, Glint also saw a large salvage drone moving out towards the slowly tumbling Skua. A fraction of a second later, a guard icon lit up over it. For the next ten minutes they fought hard to keep the Urchins, and what appeared to be juvenile killers, away from the drone and the Skua it had grasped to bring back to the Thorn.

  One of the young Urchins they had wounded was intercepted by two predator spheres. Even as he fired on other targets, Glint kept watching the predators and the injured Urchin, trying to record as much as possible as he knew Marko would be very interested.

  Just before the two predator spheres came into contact with the writhing young Urchin, they both opened out .into bowl shaped structures; the individual creatures moved far apart from each other, but held each other's tentacles to form a huge net. The net folded over the hapless Urchin, then contracted further and further down until the Urchin vanished inside the large, remorselessly closing sphere that was made of the two smaller ones. As soon as they had locked themselves together, the sphere started to accelerate away towards the largest of the LP captured asteroids.

  Glint caught a massive disc-shaped distortion in the starfields and wondered if his vision software was malfunctioning. He was about to run a quick system check when he noticed the collective movements of the Urchins, the killers and the predators.

  'Hey, Suzie. They are moving in the other direction. They are moving quickly towards the asteroids. Oh, look ... the starfield is twisting a tiny faction! Shit! I've checked and I do not have a malf unction!'

  Suzie looked over her displays and shook her head. 'I don't see anything, Glint. But I do see the queen about to jump ... too early and look, look! Basalt is free!'

  'Crew, tactical. Rapid recall of all craf t. Assist craf t in docking! There is something enormous bearing down on us. Unknown intention. Queen is about to jump. Vectors shown of most dense structure of whatever it is. Basalt is free in space. Basalt powering up! Queen has jumped! Fast Movers have been reassigned to provide protection to us.'

  Glint looked out at the changing situation. He pointed. 'The closest Skuas are docking with Basalt. Fuck. look at that!'

  A massive, barely visible spear-shaped tendril raged across the sky, seeming to come straight out of the stars to stab through the predator ball. In an instant, the spear head opened out like a flower, folded back on itself to encapsulate the Urchin predators and snatched them backwards. They watched, fascinated, as what appeared to be a huge mouth opened in amongst the stars and saw the ball flung inside. The mouth snapped shut, showing the camouflage of the starfields again.

  Glint looked back quickly as Basalt jumped. All around them the squadrons of Skua landed hard against the hull of the Thorn, clinging onto its surface with their extended clawlike landing gear.

  Just before they jumped they saw dozens of Urchins, killers and predator balls speared and dragged back towards whatever it was that was consuming them. At the instant of the Thorn jumping, the whole ship rocked hard and Glint and Suzie could feel a shockwave run through the pod.

  Glint felt the chill of the jump and then they were in the relative quiet of interstellar space at the LP between the Urchins' star system and its companion star as
something crashed just out of sight from the pod.

  'Crew! Security! Hull breech starboard side aft of pod nine. Biological threat!'

  Glint and Suzie looked at each other. They leaned forwards and looked out and down to see a huge thrashing tentacle pounding against the hull with its tip buried deep into the side of the ship.

  'Fuck this!' Suzie said.

  She pulled herself out of her seat, turned and tapped a keyboard beside the rear airlock door.

  The dome split and started opening up. She turned back to her weapon, unlocked it and lifted it onto her shoulder, leaning out of the pod, looking for the alien threat.

  'Glint!' she snapped. 'Don't just sit doing nothing, do the same with your gun! Grab the aiming HUD off the console in front of you and lock it onto the gun.'

  As Glint scrambled to find and unlock the mounts for the gun, Suzie fired the missiles and guided them down onto the tendril, slicing it through. The dismembered parts floated apart, then seemed to balloon open into fungus-like structures which drifted aft. She brought the missiles up for a second pass as a part of the remaining tendril split open with a lance-appendage flashing out and stabbing the missiles and using them to slice away part of the pod. Glint, grinding his teeth in frustration, finally got the gun off its mount and the aiming unit attached. He leaned out and fired at the missiles, which exploded and showered them with fragments. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Suzie collapsing against the back wall of the pod with shards sticking out of her chest.

  Glint growled and fired again on the raging, and now multi headed, tendril. The exploding rounds tore through it blowing pieces off, but not slowing it down, just as other bullets fired from the only other gun pod that could see the alien also fired upon it. It seemed to know what was inflicting the injuries as the now Medusa-creature slammed itself against the hull and slithered low, rapidly advancing on him. He paused his fire, looked at the ammunition loadouts available, swore at himself for his lack of thinking and selected the oxygen and hydrogen ones with self-ignition. He leaned out as far as the pod and ammo feed belts would allow and fired almost point-blank into the creature. The dozens of tendrils exploded in silent flames and the creature lifted off the hull, allowing him to fire continuously down its length, severing the creature, which thrashed about flailing in the gravity-less vacuum.