Black Hawks From a Blue Sun
Page 27
A bright flash to the left precedes a jolt and the clanging of metal parts against the hull. Beckert glances through the wraparound glass on his left at the stern of a transport. One of its two main boosters has exploded, and the vessel yaws with unbalanced thrust. The exhaust gases wash across the glass, scorching a black streak. The craft spins out of formation.
“Get us in there, Geek!” Thompson yells, dropping his faceplate.
“Aye, Sir!” Beckert answers, his eyes wide and alert. With a brusque sweep of his hand, his faceplate slides into place. The formation thrusts faster toward the narrowing gap.
The transport directly ahead erupts in flame as a lance of energy burns through it. Venting plasma pitches the craft into the one beneath. The two crumple and explode.
Heavy fragments slam into Beckert’s windshield, cracking it. The vessel lurches violently, slamming Thompson against the ceiling. Blood chilling screams fill the passenger cabin.
Beckert squints through the broken windshield at the line of light marking the gap between the closing bay doors. Another transport explodes with a flash, another brutal jolt, and the pummeling of fragments against the hull…
“Almost there…” Beckert shouts.
The transport shudders from behind and explodes.
Maiella Was Right
Beckert’s eyes open painfully. His ears ring, and his head thuds like a drum. He looks out at a smashed cockpit, the confines of which are much closer than before. A darkened console presses hard against him, pinning him in his chair.
The windshield is gone, its frame kinked inward. Beyond the kinked frame, the world is a sooty gray tangle of wreckage.
He feels a pressure in his face, a bulging, and his tongue seems too large for his mouth. He clucks a few times in confusion until the space’s only light source grabs his attention—on the center console, where the hemispherical display used to be, a lone finger of flame licks upside down into the circuitry.
The Geek focuses on the flame, watching it devour the wire insulation and throw off strings of black smoke. As the flame burrows deeper into the console, he realizes he is inverted and held aloft by the crushed-in console.
Throbbing behind his eyes takes a sudden turn to astounding pain. Salty saliva runs from his open mouth up the side of his face. He grips the sides of his helmet and pants in short, controlled breaths. Employing meditative technique, he breathes and coos to himself, easing the spikes of pain in his head, converging his doubled vision, and suppressing the nausea.
Twitching to his right fills the hazy space with a metallic din. Thompson, heaped in a ball against the front of the cockpit, spasms in one-second pulses. The Gun awakens with a start and scrambles to his feet, crazed like a cornered animal. Frantic hands and eyes search for his weapon. When he finds it, he pulls it tight to his shoulder.
Thompson’s head lifts and finds Beckert suspended before him, pinched at the midsection between the pilot’s chair and the console.
“Beckert!”
Before he can lay hands on the console, Thompson convulses with violent coughs. Red spittle strings from his lips to his visor.
“Gah,” Thompson groans. He props himself against the crushed cockpit framing with one hand and looks at his inverted teammate. “Are you ok?”
Beckert shrugs through the pain. “Well enough. Can you get me outta here?”
Thompson slings his rifle and plants a boot on the intruding console. Leaning against the back wall of the cockpit, he strains but cannot free his comrade.
“Hang on,” the Gun says, ducking through the twisted doorway.
At the front of the passenger cabin, Argo presses his way out of a pile of broken and entangled blue bodies. Rows of seats hang from above.
“How long were we out?” the big man asks.
“Over a minute.” Thompson stares at the wall of the transport, imagining how many blueskins could have amassed in that time. He extends a hand to the Brick and helps him up.
“See to Geek, he’s trapped.”
Argo nods and limps past Thompson into the cockpit. He blinks at the inverted Geek and immediately takes hold of the console. Metal screeches, reluctantly yielding centimeter by centimeter to the Brick’s strength. Beckert slips through the gap, landing on his shoulders.
Thompson strides to the back of the cabin. Overhead, where the ramp used to be, the transport is ripped wide open. Thick smoke hangs in the air outside.
Double blinking at an icon in his visor, he links wirelessly to his rifle scope and holds the weapon up through the transport’s torn belly. The hazy scope automatically compensates to infrared, streaming video of wreckage, flames, and charred bodies.
Small figures shuffle around a distant blaze, hosing it with suppressants. Thompson zooms in on the scene. Despite the hard-water spots on the scope optics, he sees fire fighters wearing full-face masks and self-contained respirators. As far as he can tell, the hoses and extinguishers are their only weapons.
The Gun continues his sweep. Above, a dense layer of smoke hides the ceiling, growing thicker and lower from the numerous fires.
Good. Cover…
He finishes his sweep, retracts his weapon, and leaps up through the open hull, perching at its edge.
The hangar bay is vast by any definition or comparison. Rows and rows of parked vessels pile against one another, slammed together by Beckert’s crashed formation of captive transports. Wreckage and scorched debris heap against the walls like a frozen wave breaking against a sea cliff. If there are any exits nearby, they are buried and well-hidden.
Thompson looks at his own transport beneath him. The stern is entirely gone, the midsection ending at charred and curled framing. Bent landing gear sticks up like the limbs of a dead insect. The nose of the craft is crammed into the back of the hangar, partially penetrating the wall. Only the sturdy passenger cabin seems intact.
He rubs his armor appreciatively, knowing the impact should have crushed every bone in his body, and scans for a way out.
“Gun.”
Thompson looks down into Argo’s face. The Brick waves him inside the transport, and the Gun drops quietly from his perch.
“What’s up?”
“Geek’s in bad shape. He just had a grand mal…”
Thompson side-steps to see past Argo’s wide shoulders. Beckert leans against the wall of the cockpit, faceplate raised. His eyes seek with the perplexed wonder of an infant.
“…he’s seeping cerebrospinal fluid, and I had to drill a shunt to ease the pressure,” Argo continues. “I don’t know how long the neuro-stims will keep him operating.” The Brick wears an insisting expression.
“You want to take him off-line,” Thompson reads.
“This is his second head trauma in days. He’s in mortal peril, and I’m concerned…”
“We can’t,” Thompson counters heavily.
Argo stares back, his eyes hard. “And our promise to O’Kai?”
“I KNOW,” Thompson thunders aggressively, his hands curled into fists, “I know.” The Gun sighs deeply through his nose, suppressing a cough on the exhale. “There are over a million variables in a jump plot home. I can’t calculate them, Argo. Can you?”
Argo lowers his eyes submissively. He dons the appropriate Cadre stoicism and stands straight.
“What are your orders, sir?”
Thompson exhales the heat from his lungs. Seeping fluids tickle his bronchioles, inciting him to cough again.
“Do what you can for him, but keep him alert. Until we get outta here, we need an extra shooter more than anything.”
Argo nods, accepting the simple-sounding yet hugely difficult task of controlling Beckert’s seizure without dulling his nervous system. As the Brick steps toward his groggy patient, he takes his labset in hand and builds a neurochemical concoction. Caption
ed molecules scroll by on the labset’s display: sodium and calcium channel blockers, L-Dopa, dopa decarboxylase and catechol-o-methyl transferase inhibitors. His thumbs trigger the keys again and again, seeking the right ratios.
Thompson leaps up to his perch.
“Where are you going?” Argo asks.
Thompson hunches to look his comrade in the eye. “Gotta find a way out of here.” He faces front and drops off the side of the crumpled transport.
The Gun’s boots sink into a mélange of conduits, ducting, machine parts, and luggage. Something crunches under his first step forward. He stoops for a closer view and picks up a brittle, carbonized arm. The hand is flexed so hard, the claws stab through the palm. He drops the limb and wipes the residue on his thigh.
The Gun picks his way through alien wreckage toward the nearest wall, pausing momentarily at the frozen wave of debris. The slope shifts beneath him as he climbs, making the summit seem farther than it is. When he reaches the top of the pile, he presses against the bay wall. It is unyielding as stone.
His legs sink randomly into the unstable pile as he slides along the wall, searching mostly by touch for a hint of a portal or hallway. The Gun grazes stubs of narrow ventilation ducts, wiring shafts, blackened beams, and tossed conveyors, but not a hint of an exit.
A shout at the center of the bay startles him, and the tall soldier whirls about.
He strains to see the source of the shout, but the curtain of smoke has fully descended. All he sees past the smoldering, oxygen-deprived fires are distant lamps sweeping and pivoting across the floor. They advance slowly, steadily toward him.
Rifle raised, he peers through the obscuring aerosols. In the spotted optics of his scope, Thompson watches the beams converge at a spot on the floor, crowd together, and stoop down, bathing a shadowy figure in artificial light. Heavily-clothed arms reach into the light and take hold of the prone figure. The figure rises limply from the floor and is removed into the background. The lamps spread out and resume their sweeping.
Thompson steps down from the mound of debris, unable to silence the jangling of loose fragments. He glides away from the wall, rifle poised at the lights, and takes a knee. A hand taps him on the shoulder.
The Gun spins and looks into the transparent respirator mask of a grungy blueskin deckhand. The yellow eyes swell from half-open relief to wide terror. Its mouth stretches, baring teeth. The purple tongue arches, forming urgent syllables.
Thompson strikes like lightning, bashing with his rifle butt. The fragile respirator mask shatters, and the creature’s head snaps backward. The deckhand collapses from the hit and clutches at its throat, gagging on the fouled air. Thompson follows with a vicious stomp to the neck, and the gagging ends.
Headlamps lift as one from the floor and shine in Thompson’s direction. Dark, angular figures streak in from behind the lamps and slide between them. The angular figures split up, weaving through the wreckage and out of sight into the smoky shadows.
Screeching metal and labored grunts startle Thompson from behind. At the adjacent wall, only a few meters from his crashed transport, long spikes of light filter through the slope of debris. The spikes slowly propagate to the left with the grunts and screeches, radiating through the smoke like the spines of a glowing sea urchin. A door is being forced open behind the frozen wave of wreckage.
“Brick! Geek! Get out here, now!”
Argo climbs out of the cabin like a shadowy nightmare, and the transport rocks under his weight. The sacks of media records are slung over one shoulder. Two large compartments are missing from his rack, their bulb- and canister-shaped contents encircling his waist. He crouches atop the twisted hulk, priming his cannon and seeking his comrade in the darkness. The Brick’s large head swivels until a bright red dot illuminates in his visor. The dot dives to the center of the glowing urchin.
“Target painted,” Thompson radios.
Argo palms a canister from his waist and arms it.
“Cover,” he says into his helmet microphone. With the flick of an arm, he lobs the canister precisely where indicated; and he drops into the transport.
Thompson sprints behind the transport’s twisted hull. The canister explodes with a mighty POOMP, bouncing the transport off the deck plates. Thousands of fragments slam against the wrecked hull, and there is a delayed clattering as lofted pieces rain down.
Thompson peeks out. The doorway is blown free of debris. Arcing blue sparks sizzle from the door jamb.
“Exit clear!” he radios. “Move out!”
Beckert flies up out of the cabin like a jack in the box and lands unsteadily. His hands hang loosely at his side, his eyes roam behind his goggles as though he were lost.
Argo climbs out beside him. Taking the Geek by the rack, he jumps down and sets Beckert onto his feet.
Thompson runs to his comrades, looking Beckert over with alarm. He shoves the Brick angrily.
“I said alert, Argo!”
Argo shoves Thompson back.
“He WILL be!”
The Gun snarls behind his faceplate. No time to argue.
“On me. MOVE!”
Thompson pulls his rifle against his shoulder and dashes for the exit. Argo takes Beckert by the rack again and, one handed, hefts him as though he were tossing a heavy sport coat over his shoulder. Beckert’s head lolls as the big man shrugs him into a manageable position.
Dense smoke courses through the open doorway, smothering the light from the corridor beyond. The floor is slick with seeping blue and purple flesh.
Thompson’s pace carries them ahead of the smoke into full illumination. Stark light strains their dark adapted eyes.
Another few meters and the corridor bends to the right. Thompson pads up to the corner and crouches. Argo takes position behind.
“Put me down,” Beckert says.
Argo lowers his comrade to the floor. The Geek raises his gauntleted hands before his face and wiggles his fingers.
“This is really weird.”
“I know,” Argo explains, holding the Geek’s chin to look in his eyes. “Your brain chemistry is modified. You may experience some sensory cross-over.”
Beckert reaches for his pistols, missing the first time. Annoyed, he stiffens and concentrates, snatching them cleanly. He checks the actions.
“Well, you got rid of my headache,” he says appreciatively.
“Are you ok?” Thompson asks.
Beckert looks past Argo at his leader.
“Yeah…I mean, Yes Sir!” The Geek shakes his head sternly. “I just have to focus.”
“Argo, cover our rear. Geek, you…”
Beckert’s pistol flicks out beside Thompson, and the Geek triggers. Muzzle flashes thump against the Gun’s armor like a drum roll of heavy rubber mallets. Thompson spins, training his rifle on a severely perforated reptilian soldier. The soldier snorts, collapses face first, and lies still.
Beckert drops the spent clip and slips the pistol grip over a fresh magazine on his thigh. Releasing the pistol’s action, he looks at Thompson patiently.
Thompson peeks around the corner.
“Corridor’s clear. Follow me.”
The team tears off in unison, delving into the vessel’s innards. Thompson triggers methodically at anything resembling a camera. Beckert covers the side passageways and open rooms with his peripheral vision. Argo runs backwards, aiming his cannon into their wake.
Long, egg-shaped corridors fade one into another. Identical spacing between regular intersections, identical spacing between identical red doors, identical rows of low-mounted light fixtures—the features all tick compulsively in Thompson’s mind. The farther he goes, the less sure he is of his course.
Another intersection, pass twelve doors in the corridor, swing right, another corridor of twelve doors, and still no one is around. He glances at one of the ordinary red doors as he runs by. Alien script is stenciled two thirds of the way up with innocuous white characters.
Why aren’t these rooms wort
h defending? he wonders. Is this a vacant part of the ship? Maybe everything here is automated, or maybe the crash caused all to be evacuated…
“Where are we going, Gun?” Argo asks, interrupting Thompson’s mental sojourn.
“A ship this big must have more than one flight deck,” the tall soldier replies. “We might even…”
A chill claws into the nape of Thompson’s neck and raises the hair on his forearms. Far ahead, past multiple intersections, a corridor on the right is slightly dimmer than the rest. His fist flies up, and the team pads to a halt. Rising to his toes, the Gun glides silently ahead and signals his team to do the same.