by Richard Fox
Nunez ducked, clearing the line of fire for Popov behind him. She fired off a burst that ripped through the bleeding guard and struck the one behind it. The rounds bit into the next guard’s chest and shoulder, barely slowing it down. It swept its club across the ground and knocked Nunez off his feet.
Popov aimed for its head, but the Netherguard arced its club up and struck the weapon from her grasp. The doughboy stomped a foot onto Nunez’s back, pinning him to the ground then slammed a meaty hand around Popov’s throat. He lifted her into the air, her feet kicking.
A Netherguard jabbed its club at West’s face, scoring a glancing blow against the edge of his helmet. The guard shoved the haft against West’s chest and pushed him back. West fell to a knee, dropping his carbine. He looked up just in time to see the tip of the club connect with his face and West dropped to the walkway, unmoving.
“No.” Carson felt a stab of hatred for herself as she held back, watching as her team was captured. It was happening again. Her decisions had led to disaster, to people she cared about getting hurt. She took a step towards them when a hand on her arm pulled her back.
“Chief, wait,” Birch said.
She looked at him, questioning, and he pointed.
On the ground level, a hundred guards had appeared, with more streaming in from the various entrances around the chamber. The flanking group had Popov and Nunez bound with cuffs and tore their helmets off. One guard crushed their gauntlet screens with a squeeze of his hand. Another picked up West’s limp body, unceremoniously throwing him over its shoulder.
“We need to get off this platform,” Birch said.
“And go where?” Moretti asked. “They’re going to be looking for more of us now and if we run off, we could end up in the guards’ barracks for all we know.”
Carson paused, searching the workspaces below. She stopped when she saw the woman the guards had beaten; she still sat huddled against the wall of her workspace, seeming oblivious to the chaos around her.
Focus, Carson said, you’re still the chief. You’re still in charge. So long as they’re alive, there’s hope.
“I bet she knows where they’ll take our team. Stay close.”
Carson scanned the surrounding chamber, marking the locations of the guards. Most had moved away from the work area, all seeming interested in taking the rest of her team into custody, ignoring the rest of the workers in the chamber. It was practically a straight line from the drone control platform to the Danielle woman’s work area.
Carson jumped from the platform, using her anti-grav boots to slow, and control, her fall. She landed with a cat’s grace just outside the cubicle, barely making a sound. Danielle sat against one wall, clutching her broken leg, groaning in pain.
Carson knelt down next to her, removing her camouflage. The woman started to cry out, but Carson cut her off, covering her mouth with a hand.
“Shhhh. Listen, we’re here to help, but you need to stay quiet. I’m going to turn my camo back on, okay? I’m going to vanish, but I’m still here. Understand?”
The woman nodded, her eyes wide in fear.
“How long to the next shift change? Where will they take you?” Carson asked after the camouflage reactivated, hiding her from sight.
“A few hours. We all go back to the cells.”
“My team, where will the guards take them? The cells too?”
“I’m not sure. Anyone hurts a guard like your people did and they’re executed right away. Hale might take them to the Masters…and they’re inside the ship.”
“Hold still,” Moretti reached over and pressed a hypo spray to Danielle’s neck. There was a hiss and her eyes went out of focus a moment later.
“That’s…awesome,” she said.
“I can’t work on her now,” the medic said. “But she can skip out on the pain until I can.”
“Don’t worry, lady, he does good work.” Carson pulled back to a corner with Birch and Moretti. She sat fuming, running her failures through her mind and contemplating just how she’d get everyone out of this mess in one piece.
****
West screamed as yet another wave of pain flowed through his body. His voice cracked as the pulses continued, what felt like bolts of searing needles over his skin, through his organs, through his very bones. His vision blurred; he couldn’t see anything but a dim green light reflecting off a curved surface in front of him.
He thrashed against his restraints. They’d strapped him to a kind of table, arms bound out to either side, legs bound together, a wide leather band wrapped around his waist. After removing his armor, they’d stripped him from the waist up, exposing his skin for several wires driven into his body.
The pain subsided once again and West took in a series of rapid, pained breaths. He growled through gritted teeth, straining in vain to pull a hand free.
“What the hell do you want?” he shouted.
His throat burned, the anger in his voice sounding almost feeble, frail.
He tried to kick his legs free, but it was no use.
West took several long breaths, forcing himself to think rationally about his situation. Screaming and yelling isn’t going to do you any good, he told himself. You’re a Pathfinder. Find a way.
As if his small prison had heard him, the curved surface in front of him seemed to melt away. He felt the table move underneath him, folding up to hold him vertical just inside the opening of the cell. His vision cleared and the room beyond came into focus. Recessed lighting accentuated curved outer walls, painted stark-white, lined with gold trim. The gold lines all converged in the center of the room, where a waist-high plinth jutted from the floor, a control panel resting atop it.
A door opened at the far side of the room and a robot strode in. Its legs bent backwards, arms hung loose to the knees. It moved with a fluid grace akin to an organic being. It was tall and painfully slender. Strips of black and silver segmented metal formed its fluted surface, too ornate to be some sort of menial automaton. Its head was elongated and echoed the Netherguard’s appearance. Two eyes glowed red in a featureless skull. As it walked, a pulsing red light seeped through the creases in the metal.
Another figure—human—followed the robot and stepped to the side as he entered. West pulled against his restraints, blood pounding in his ears. “You son of a bitch!” he yelled at Jared Hale.
The alien gave Jared a sidelong glance, then flicked a finger toward West.
West grimaced as another wave of energy pulsed through him. He clamped his teeth together, refusing to cry out. The pain passed, his body slumped back against the table.
The robot stopped in front of West, cocking its head to the side as if considering what exactly to make of the senior Pathfinder. Without saying a word, it reached forward, a small blade extending from its index finger.
“What do you want?” West asked, trying to pull away from the knife. The clamps holding him tightened against his skin, holding him still.
The knife cut into his cheek, just below his cheekbone, slicing an inch-long line through his skin. West screamed, jerking his head away. The alien pulled the knife back, then ran another fingertip across the gash, swiping up some of the blood.
West growled, then spit a large wad of phlegm and blood onto the alien’s face. The reddish spittle hit the robot’s face, but there was no reaction.
“You promised those that followed would bring the answer,” the robot said, his voice mechanical, flat. No mouth moved with the words, but light pulsed where its mouth should have been. The finger with West’s blood glowed. “This one is like all the rest; not what we need.”
Jared stepped forward. “This is the first, Arch Duke. The first of many thousands. There is no way all are true born.”
“You traitor,” West muttered. “What have you done to the colony, to all those people?”
“Silence,” the arch duke said, his tone more annoyed than anything. “Always promises with you, Jared. You said the answer lay with the one you called Shann
on and we lost much searching for her.”
“Unforeseen circumstances,” Jared said. “Had our one ship not crashed, I would have hunted Shannon down personally.” He stepped up to West, and the Pathfinder got a closer look at him. The bundle of cables at the back of his skull ran into the armor encasing his body, the design clearly not human. Thin wires pulsed beneath Jared’s face, like roots from a tree.
“Let us test the others,” Jared said. “Perhaps fate does smile on you today, my lord.”
West groaned as the energy pulsed through him again. The pain faded and the Pathfinder watched the robot move toward two large, opaque eggshells embedded into the wall. As he neared them, the fronts melted away, as his had; revealing their human captives inside.
Popov and Nunez, both strapped to similar t-boards as West, both looked as though they’d been through hell. Nunez groaned, lifting his head. Blood trickled down the side of his face from a gash on his forehead. Popov looked up, her face a mask of confusion and pain. After a second, she seemed to finally comprehend the scene in front of her, and she let out a throat-scratching scream.
The arch duke ignored the outburst, walking up to Nunez, foregoing the cut to the cheek in favor of simply running his finger over the open wound. Nunez cursed, jerking away from the probing fingers.
“Not what we need.”
“Hey, untie me from this thing and see if you—nhh!” Nunez’s jaw clenched shut as pain lanced through his body.
The alien moved to Popov, who screamed as it neared, reaching up to her face. “No, no, no, no! Get away!” she shouted, thrashing her head back and forth.
Reaching up with its other hand, the alien took hold of Popov’s chin, forcing her head still as he cut into her cheek with the other. Popov’s screams of fear and pain echoed around the room. The robot withdrew the blade and her cries were cut short as her body convulsed.
“Stop it!” West shouted. “Tell us what you want!”
The arch duke swiped its finger across the cut, then stepped away. It held its hand up and cocked its head to the side. “Fascinating,” it said, eyes falling on Popov. “Such exquisite craftsmanship. An impressive feat of biological engineering. The Qa’Resh were masters. The key to the procedural bodies is finally here. This sample will be enough to move the project to the next stage.”
“What do you mean?” Hale asked, sounding surprised. “You found what you need?”
The arch duke continued as if it hadn’t heard its human conscript. “A vivisection may not be necessary…for now. Do what you will with the males, but keep her alive. The emperor and the prince will want to hear of this. We’ve been locked in these shells for far too long.”
“I’m…a proccie?” Popov asked. “No. Can’t be. My parents…my parents had me.”
The robot turned and left the room without another word, leaving Hale alone with the three Pathfinders.
“What the hell have you done, Jared?” West demanded.
Jared glared at West, his eyes hard. He worked the muscles in his jaw for a moment, as if considering his next course of action, then snapped his fingers.
West felt his table drift back into an open eggshell and shouted curses at the traitor as the front surface formed around him again, sealing him off from the rest of the world.
Chapter 12
Hale shifted again, trying to remember if power armor had been this uncomfortable when he’d worn it daily. He felt slightly nostalgic wearing the old get-up, despite the fact that this armor had obviously shrunk over the last several years. Though standing on the bridge of the Enduring Spirit in Strike Marine armor made him feel out of place. He was the Director of this mission, not a team leader again. He thought back to all the days aboard the Breitenfeld during the war and wished Valdar, that ship’s captain, were here to offer guidance.
“…and the new battle armor is being issued as we speak,” Marie was saying. “However, 2nd Company won’t be fully outfitted with their weapons for another twelve hours. They’re scheduled to deploy at 0430 Local.”
Hale resisted the urge to rub his eyes. “What’s the delay?”
“The foundry screwed up the first batch of rifles. Swapped some material element that would make the barrels explode after a hundred rounds. At least we caught it up here and not during a firefight. My people were able to locate it and correct it, but we had to toss out an entire batch. Luckily, 1st Company received theirs before the assembly fouled.”
“A lot can happen in twelve hours. We’ll need to rework some of the second-stage mission parameters.”
Marie nodded. “Hopefully, we’ll hear back from Carson’s team before that.”
“Signal from the surface, Colonel,” Commander Edison said from his station to Hale’s right. “Audio only.”
“Put it through here,” Hale said. Edison tapped a few controls, then nodded. “Nova One, this is Spirit Actual. What’s your situation, Captain?”
“Spirit Actual, Nova One, primary forces have landed in LZ-1a and are deploying to Target 1, estimated to be on target three-zero minutes, sir.”
Hale checked the chrono at the front of the bridge. “Confirming, thirty minutes? Why so long?”
“That is correct, sir. We’re working what you might call some grit out of the gears, sir. Convincing Rangers, infantry, and few salty old Strike Marines to work together is like asking a room full of toddlers to share their ice cream.”
“Captain, you may advise your troops that if I have to come down there and put a boot in their asses, I will, and I can promise you they won’t like it.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Also, be advised that 2nd Company’s departure has been pushed back. We’ll have a better ETA for you in a few hours. Right now, stay on mission, but plan to secure a new LZ when the time comes.”
“We’ll be ready, sir.”
“Sir,” Hue held up a hand, “I’m picking up massive energy readings from the Christophorous.”
Hale pushed himself out of his chair, almost launching himself into the air, forgetting he was wearing his armor. He looked at Hue’s screen. The Christophorous was still near the smaller of Terra Nova’s two moons, their orbit over the planet bringing them much closer to the Spirit and the fleet’s other ships than when they’d first arrived.
Hue shook his head. “No, wait, it’s not one signature…it’s breaking up into several. I’m getting more than a dozen now. Looks like they’re coming from the cargo pods left in the frame. I’ll have a visual in another minute.”
A wireframe holo-map appeared on the plot in the center of the bridge. Twelve orange dots spread into a rough spherical formation, shooting away from the old colony ship, toward Hale’s fleet.
“There was nothing in those cargo containers,” Edison said. “We scanned them.”
“But we didn’t look inside,” Marie grumbled.
Hale nodded, weighing his options. “Lock us down, Commander. Every hatch, every bay. Instruct the rest of the fleet to do the same.” He turned to Marie. “Sound general quarters. You have the bridge.”
Marie nodded. “And what’re you going to do?”
Hale looked down at his armor and picked up his helmet from the holo table.
“Not my first rodeo,” he said.
“If we could make fighters as easily as we make those fancy pants of yours, you’d be stuck here,” she snapped.
Hale and the bridge crew watched in silence as the orange dots shifted to red as they neared the Spirit. Their lack of offensive weapons put them purely on the defense, and even those capabilities were slim to none. How were the designers supposed to know the biggest colony ship ever built would encounter an armed alien presence days after making what should have been a peaceful jump.
Course projection lines appeared on the plot, all angling to the aft section of the Spirit.
“That’s not right,” Commander Edison said, stepping up to the plot, frowning. “Those projections put them near the main cargo bay. Why would they want to attack ther
e? You’d think they’d want to assault as close to the bridge or engineering as possible.”
Marie barked orders into her handheld comm, sending teams of armed crewmen to converge on the main cargo bay.
Hale swiped a hand over the holo-map. The image zoomed toward the aft section of the ship, putting the cargo bay front and center. “Wherever they land, I want forcefields to reinforce the hatches and passageways. Commander, let’s start evacuations, starting with this area here.”
“Aye, sir.”
“They’ll reach us in three minutes,” Hue said.
Hale watched the lead ship rotate on its approach, presenting its aft section to the Spirit. As it came within a hundred meters, retro engines flared and anchor cables shot from all four corners. At five meters, a cluster of cutting lasers ignited, slicing into the Spirit’s hull.
“Hull breach!” Hue reported.
As the first ship’s laser faded, an umbilical extended from the underside, latching on to the Spirit’s hull around the fresh circular breach. The second ship’s anchor cables fired, and a second later, it too was cutting into the hull, breaching several feet away from its companion.
Marie touched her ear. “Contact. Boarders coming through...the altered doughboys again, and they’re armed with rifles.”
Hale cursed, standing and pulling his gauss carbine free of its magnetic clips on the side of his chair. He donned his helmet and felt old memories stir in the back of his mind.
Marie looked at him, her eyes filled with worry. “Stay safe, my love.”
Hale slapped the bolt release on the rifle and a loud clack echoed through the bridge. “Can’t. Time to crack some skulls.”