“Are we learning anything new from this?” he asked.
“No, sir,” said Pointer. “Our sensor arrays can see from this distance what theirs can only see from close-up.”
“Wait on – what’s this?” said Blake.
“Looks like Drone #9 has found a breach,” said Quinn.
“Where is it in relation to the rest of the ship?”
“That drone is near to the place where the front nullification sphere joins the connecting beam.”
“Look at that damage!” said Blake. “Any idea what caused it?”
“A combination of heat and impact,” said Hawkins. “It’s dark in there.”
The hull breach was a jagged tear through the Neutraliser’s armour plating and was only half visible, with the remainder vanishing out of sight underneath the spaceship. The drone was equipped with high-intensity lights and it made directly for the widest part of the breach, with its light beams skittering over the black metal. The image feed from Drone #9 ended abruptly.
“What the…?” said Pointer.
“Has it failed?”
“I don’t know, sir. Drone #10 has located the hole now.”
The second drone followed the first, relaying a brief, confused image of the Neutraliser’s interior. It, too, shut down almost immediately. Blake guessed what was happening.
“Their Gallenium engines are going offline.”
“I still can’t detect anything from that front sphere,” said Quinn in puzzlement. “Nothing at all.”
“It doesn’t appear as if the enemy vessel has entirely lost its potency,” said Blake. “With or without the power flowing.”
“Should I recall the remaining drones?” asked Pointer.
“There’s no point in throwing good after bad. Bring them back.”
“I’ve sent the command and they should be back with us in the next few minutes.”
“We’re not going to see much of the interior without the drones,” said Hawkins.
“There’s a way for us to get the information we’ve been sent to find, Lieutenant. It just means taking a bigger risk.”
Blake wasn’t pleased with what he needed to do. Unfortunately, there was no choice and he opened up a comms channel in order to pass on the news.
Chapter Three
Lieutenant Eric McKinney sat in the mess room of the ES Abyss, watching the sensor feed on one of the wall-mounted screens provided to give ship-bound troops an eye onto the outside world. A few of the other soldiers were in the room with him, eyes glued to the display and their mouths half-open.
“What’s a Neutraliser doing here?” asked Rank One Trooper Dexter Webb, his plate of replicated fried meat forgotten in front of him.
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” said McKinney.
“Did the Space Corps know about it?”
“I don’t know.”
Webb was a natural with a plasma tube but he had a habit of asking too many questions. “What do you think Captain Blake will do?” he pressed.
Sergeant Johnny Li took it upon himself to answer. “The way I see it, there are only two possible choices. One: we hover here for a while and stare at the Neutraliser and then fly somewhere else. Two: Captain Blake decides he needs someone to go check it out. I reckon this is the most likely outcome.”
Ricky Vega had been silent so far, staring at his new hand. He’d lost the original in the same engagement with the Vraxar that had seen Webb badly hurt, and the Space Corps had given him a new flesh-and-bone copy which was a slightly different hue to the rest of his skin. “Don’t they have drones for this sort of mission?”
“You losing your nerve, Vega?” asked Huey Roldan.
“Nah, course not. They can’t replace guys like us with drones.”
“You can’t beat feet on the ground,” added Martin Garcia.
McKinney felt something buzzing in his pocket and he pulled out a short blue cylinder made from some kind of polymer the name of which contained in excess of fifty letters. There was a tiny screen on the cylinder, informing him of an inbound communication from the bridge.
“Here we go,” he said.
With a twist, he detached the end of the pocket communicator and a tiny combined earpiece/microphone fell from the hollow centre into the palm of his hand. He pushed it into his ear.
“This is McKinney.”
The group of soldiers kept their eyes fixed on McKinney and tried to figure out the direction of the conversation from his one-word responses to Captain Blake. After a couple of minutes, McKinney removed the earpiece and replaced it in the communicator.
“They did send drones and the drones didn’t work,” he said, getting up from his seat. “Let’s go.”
The others climbed to their feet, questions spilling out.
Without further explanation, McKinney strode off towards the main exit from the mess room. There was a mini-console mounted on the wall at the entrance to the passage. He paused to issue a command to muster and selected the location. Immediately, the usual subtle white-blue lighting changed to a deeper, rich blue and the androgynous tones of the Abyss’s computer spoke instructions.
“All troops to the rear shuttle bay armoury. All troops to the rear shuttle bay armoury. This is not an exercise.”
“They’re really sending us,” said Roldan, falling in behind McKinney.
“It’s a Neutraliser,” McKinney replied. “I’m not surprised they want to get some human eyes on it.”
“That thing’s massive. We’ve only got a hundred and twenty men on the Abyss.”
“There’s a breach into its hull and our scans suggest the life support systems failed. Captain Blake is confident there’s nothing left alive.”
“I’ve heard that one before.”
“Look on the bright side – you might get to do some shooting.”
“I’m going to take me a crap on a Vraxar toilet,” said Jeb Whitlock happily.
McKinney shook his head in wonder at the priorities of some in his squad.
“Do the Vraxar even have toilets?” asked Webb. “Someone told me they got sewn up down there.”
“Enough,” said McKinney.
“But Lieutenant…”
“That means shut up, soldier.”
The ES Abyss was a shade under four thousand metres long, yet the liveable space inside took up only a fraction of that. It was less than a thousand metres from the mess room to the rear shuttle bay. The corridors were wide enough for three to pass and a cool breeze blew in McKinney’s face as he walked. He’d spent most of his service years on the ground and he was still getting used to the feeling of being permanently stationed onboard a fleet warship. He understood what the old timers meant when they described becoming attuned to the engines and what the different tones and vibrations signified. It was a new world and one he embraced.
Other soldiers joined in the procession and McKinney’s practised eye estimated that more than a hundred were following him when he reached the bay armoury. The armoury was a square room with a claustrophobically low ceiling and lit permanently in red, as if the colour would somehow impress a sense of urgency upon the soldiers kitting up. There were racks of suits dangling from a rail in a long alcove along one wall. Elsewhere there were a couple of metal boxes filled with the associated visors, these expensive technological marvels thrown inside without apparent care. Elsewhere, racks and cabinets carried a variety of weapons designed to efficiently convert the living into dead.
“Command code: McKinney. Unlock all.”
Around the room, dozens of tiny red lights which indicated the weaponry was locked down, turned to green. McKinney climbed onto one of the metal benches, his short hair brushing against the dull alloy of the low ceiling.
“Listen up!” he bellowed once he judged everyone was present. “You’re taking a suit, a repeater, rifle and grenades. Comms packs and plasma tubes for those trained to carry them.”
“What’s the job, sir?” asked Joy Guzman.
&nb
sp; On a warship, news travelled faster than a gauss slug in a vacuum and McKinney had no doubt everyone had a good idea where they were going.
“There’s a disabled Vraxar Neutraliser on Vanistar. It’s badly damaged and we’ve been asked to poke our noses inside and check out what our favourite alien scumbags have been up to.”
“That’s it?”
“I expect the mission goal to change once we land and learn more about the situation.”
“Are we taking any heavy armour, Lieutenant?” shouted Elias Mack from the back of the gathered soldiers.
“Negative - we’re going in the two biggest shuttles and the tanks are staying behind. The ES Abyss will provide cover for our approach. There’s a breach in the enemy hull at ground level and that’s our way in. It’s not tall enough to fit a tank through and even if it was, and as big as the Neutraliser is, I very much doubt there’s space to drive a Gunther around the interior.”
“That’s the polite way of telling you not to ask stupid questions, Mack!” shouted Ronnie Horton.
There were a few jeers and whistles, which died off quickly when McKinney called for silence.
“Most of you haven’t fought the Vraxar before. You’ve been in the simulators and read the files, but you haven’t faced them for real. They’re fast and I still don’t know if they care for their own miserable lives or not. It makes them unpredictable.”
“And they stink worse than Whitlock’s breath,” said Garcia.
There was further jeering and this time McKinney was more forceful when he demanded silence.
“The next man I catch pissing around travels to the surface tied to the shuttle’s nose cannon. That means you, Garcia.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant.”
Rudy Munoz raised a hand. “I know you said all the Vraxar down there are dead and everything, sir, but I prefer to look on the pessimistic side if I think it’s going to increase my chances of getting out alive.”
“Get to the point.”
“If we see any Vraxar, are we shooting the bastards first or should we try and parlay?”
“Shoot the bastards first. Any more questions?”
When nothing was forthcoming, McKinney repeated his order for the soldiers to get kitted up in preparation for the mission. Soon, he was listening to the coarse chatter as his troops struggled into their spacesuits. While he dressed, McKinney tried to get a sense of the mood. Those he classed as his experienced men laughed and joked without a care. The others made forced jokes and wisecracks that suggested they weren’t quite so unconcerned. Everyone has to start somewhere, he thought.
Getting into a spacesuit was a standard drill exercise and it wasn’t long before the entire warship’s complement of soldiers was suitably dressed for a deployment into a low-temperature atmosphere filled with toxic gas. Most had their visors resting on top of their heads whilst others lowered them into place, hiding their expressions.
Afterwards came the superstitious checking of the gauss rifles. The soldiers picked them up and replaced them, checked the heft and looked along the barrel. Occasionally a man or woman would test four or five rifles before settling on a satisfactory example. McKinney had never understood the need for this particular routine and he shook his head inwardly. The weapons were produced with a variance percentage that was many decimal places long and made up entirely of zeroes apart from the last digit, which was rounded up to a one. Even the most expert sniper in the entire Space Corps wouldn’t know the difference if you swapped his favourite gun for another.
For whatever reason, repeaters and plasma tubes were exempt from this careful examination and soon, McKinney was facing six rows of fully-armed soldiers. A few shuffled nervously or transferred weight from foot to foot. Mostly, they looked ready for anything.
He climbed back onto his bench. “Move out to your designated shuttle,” he said. “Once I’ve been given the go-ahead, we’ll leave. Vanistar isn’t the sort of place you’d go on a first date, so don’t be stupid enough to lift your visors.”
McKinney jumped down with a thud onto the floor, gathered up his rifle and clipped it onto his plasma repeater’s ammo pack. There were two wide corridors leading from the armoury, both going to the same place. He picked one and headed along for fifty metres. It opened out into a room that was seventy or eighty metres wide and only ten across. There were airlock doors to the left and right, whilst a set of steps climbed upwards from the middle of the opposite wall. A sign hung from the ceiling above the entrance to the steps. Docking Bay - Shuttles Three and Four.
McKinney ignored the steps and went to the left-hand airlock door. It spun open automatically at his approach, allowing him access to a tunnel with a grated floor and a console at each end. The red light from the armoury was replicated inside. There was plenty of room for sixty of the Abyss’s troops in the airlock. Once everyone was within, McKinney used one of the consoles to activate the end door. There was a short pause during which the warship’s life support systems ran through a series of checks. Then, the first door closed and the second door opened. Stark hospital-white light from the shuttle’s passenger bay flooded out and mixed with the red inside the airlock, making a pink hue.
He stepped across the threshold and immediately noticed the lack of solidity underfoot. The shuttle was heavily armoured, but its hull wasn’t anything like as dense as the ES Abyss and his footsteps had the faintest of hollow notes.
The Space Corps didn’t spend its money on the sort of frivolous luxuries that would cause uproar amongst the Confederation’s citizens. Therefore, the shuttle’s seats were meagrely padded, the passenger bay viewscreen was an older model and there was no chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The craft was little more than an over-chilled grey box with an engine and a top-of-the-line twelve-barrel Gallenium-driven rotating gauss repeater that, given the opportunity and a murderous intent, could mow down a thousand penny-pinching bean counters in under five seconds.
McKinney crossed directly to a door in the front wall of the bay. It hissed opened with the press of a button and allowed him into the cockpit. There were three seats in front of the main console, their black cloth coverings showing signs of wear and tear. He dropped into the middle one and began the process of bringing the shuttle into a state of flight readiness. The engines of all four of the Abyss’s shuttles were kept warm, so it didn’t take longer than a few seconds until the Ready icon appeared on the pilot’s central screen.
The cockpit door opened and a figure leaned inside.
“Need a hand?” asked Corporal Nitro Bannerman.
“Sure. Jump on the comms.”
“Want me to get someone up front who can use the nose cannon?”
“Don’t worry about it, Corporal. We’ll have the Abyss watching over us and I know which I’d feel safer with. Besides, I can control the chaingun from here if I need to.”
He activated a secondary screen to his left. It showed the view from a sensor positioned dead in the centre of the nose cannon’s barrels, along with a targeting circle and various other details such as distance and the number of hostiles it was tracking.
“It hasn’t detected anything it doesn’t like, huh?” said Bannerman, looking over.
“Just hope it stays nailed on zero. Even with the Abyss providing cover, I don’t want any surprises on this mission.”
“A quick in and out. Easy.”
“I’m not going to tempt fate, Corporal.”
“It keeps life interesting.”
The shuttle was ready to fly. “Speak to the bridge and tell them we’re ready to go.”
It only took a moment for Bannerman to send the message and get a response. “Captain Blake asks what we’re waiting for. He’s even opening the outer bay door for us.”
The thick door protecting the ES Abyss’s shuttle bay dropped into its recess with a serenity belying its incredible weight. The shuttle was facing outwards and its front array showed the swirling patterns of dust hurtling past as they were dragged along by the f
urious winds.
“We’ve got the coordinates in our nav system. I’m activating the autopilot. Corporal Bannerman, make Shuttle Two aware.”
“Roger.”
McKinney touched an area on his screen and a number of electronic gauges climbed. The shuttle’s engines rumbled, causing the third seat in the cockpit to buzz gratingly. The gravity clamps holding the vessel in place shut off and the shuttle decoupled from the bay wall. There was a sensation of acceleration and the outer bay doorway grew rapidly larger on the sensor feed.
“Shuttle Two will undock once we’re through the energy shield,” said McKinney.
Shuttle One flew out of the ES Abyss’s bay, still within the protective sphere of the energy shield. The effect was strange to witness – within the shield, it was calm and still. Outside, the potent anger of Vanistar railed fruitlessly against the power of Obsidiar.
“We haven’t even landed and already I hate the place,” said Bannerman.
Something in the man’s words made McKinney shiver. He didn’t count himself superstitious, but he couldn’t shake the sudden feeling something bad was going to happen. He did his best to ignore it and sat back while the autopilot took the shuttle through a gap in the energy shield opened for them by the ES Abyss’s battle computer.
As soon as they were outside the shield’s perimeter, the howling winds gripped the shuttle and did their best to carry the craft along in the madness.
Chapter Four
It was a bumpy ride to the surface. The shuttle’s sensors were considerably less advanced than those on the ES Abyss and they struggled to pierce the storm. Then, at an altitude of ten kilometres, there was a brief lull which allowed McKinney to see the extent of the challenge ahead.
Bannerman realised it too. “Assuming all the Vraxar onboard are dead, and I sincerely hope they died in agony, that’s a lot of ship to search,” he said.
“Have you left the oven on or something?”
God Ship (Obsidiar Fleet Book 3) Page 3