“Prepare for disappointment,” said Yim. “There won’t be that much on the outer hull. A little. But keep your boots mag-locked.”
“Great,” said Blair, looking distinctly uncomfortable in her suit.
There was no time to worry about it. “Don’t puke in there,” said Mattis. “Serious now.”
“You got it, Mattis.” She gave two thumbs up in an admirable effort at confidence.
No more stalling. He reached over and hit the airlock cycle button. Air hissed out of the room, gauges on his suit slowly showed the pressure differential increasing. When all the air was gone, Mattis pushed the door to the outside of the ship open and stepped out onto the hull.
Into a massive firefight.
Six Chinese ships, sailing in a tight V, were firing silently in the depths of space, volleys of cannon fire striking the Caernarvon’s hull plates, each impact a bright flash and a burst of shrapnel. The burning wrecks of two more ships drifted aimlessly in space, raging infernos consuming them from within.
“Holy hell,” said Mattis, staring in wonder as another wave of fire sailed in and splashed off the hull. “We should not be here.” He closed the door. How had that single British ship done so much damage? Obviously, Spectre’s mention of pushing buttons to destroy ships was no jest. Possibly more mutunt-in-a-box bombs. Like Lily had been, before Chuck befriended her.
“That’s why this is the best idea for us,” said Spears, her voice wavering uncharacteristically. “He won’t be expecting us to go this way because nobody would be crazy enough to walk across the outer hull during a firefight.”
“Okay,” said Mattis. “Plan is, we need to get to the bridge. But it’s at the center of the ship, so… Spears. What’s the plan?”
“We need to get to the aft airlock. There’s an emergency access passage that leads along the spine of the ship toward the CIC. It’s there because the original design for the Swallow class ships, like the Caernarvon, had problems with their bridge computer systems shutting down due to thermal overloads. The solution was to have a vent installed to pump in extra atmosphere and help prevent the bridge crew from overheating. And while advances in computers fixed the thermal problems, the vents are still there. If Spectre knows about them or thinks we would be crazy enough to reach them, I’ll eat my hat. With salt.”
“Vents,” said Mattis, skeptically. “How big are they?”
Spears smiled laconically. But Mattis could tell it was a fake smile, smothering pure anger. “Hope you haven’t been putting on weight in your old age.”
“Great,” muttered Blair. “Claustrophobic spaces and zero gravity…”
“Pish posh, it’ll be nothing,” said Spears. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.” She paused, thinking for a moment. “But in order to get from the port airlock to the aft airlock, we’re still going to have to run across the hull.”
“For how long?” asked Mattis, doubtful. “You know there’s a battle out there, right?”
“I most certainly do,” said Spears. “But at the distances we’re talking about—close enough for us to see the Chinese ships with our Mk I eyeballs—they aren’t going to be aiming for the center of mass. They’ll be hitting the weak points. Right, Yim?”
“That’s what I would do,” he said. “It makes sense.”
“Right. And the center of the ship is the easiest part to hit, but also the most heavily armored, apart from the bow. So it’s pretty unlikely they’ll be aiming there.”
“Might they be aiming, you know, aft?” asked Blair. “You know, where we’re running to?”
“We run starboard first,” said Spears. “Over the middle of the ship, then when we’re on the far side, down toward the airlock.”
“This is insane. Suicide.”
Spears straightened up to her full height and adjusted her suit smartly. “And that’s why it’s going to work—nobody expects it. It’s not suicide if we survive, and the best way for us to do that is to do something he simply will not see coming. They won’t expect us.”
“Fine,” said Mattis. If they were going to be unexpected… “Okay. Operation Spanish Inquisition is our best shot, so I’m going to open the door again. Ready?”
“Ready,” said everyone, simultaneously. Mattis pushed open the door, revealing the empty, endless space once more, and the raging firefight streaking across it. He double-checked his boots were magnetized, took a deep breath, and then flung himself out of the airlock onto the outer hull of the ship.
“Run!” he shouted, sprinting as fast as he could over the lip of the ship, toward the far side, hoping that this insane plan was just impossible enough to work.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Outer Hull
HMS Caernarvon
Empty Space
He could hear nothing but his own ragged breathing; could feel nothing more than the pumping of his legs and the pounding of his heart in his chest. For Mattis, the fear of being silently obliterated by a stray Chinese round was a powerful motivator.
If it happened, though, at least it would be quick.
No sound made it through the vacuum of space, and given that he was in front, Mattis had no idea how the others were faring. It was something he simply had no time to consider. Instead, he sprinted as fast as he could, bouncing on the outer hull, his magnetic boots latching hold every time they met the metal blow him, only to push off again immediately.
He felt like he was a giant on the surface of a tiny moon. The horizon of the tiny ship scrolled, sensors and damaged hull plates threatening to trip him with every step, but he kept his footing through a combination of luck and panic, arms and legs flying.
A round splashed into plating to his left, silently bursting in against the hull, passing a low vibration through the metal under his feet. The force was enough to make his chest shake. A cloud of sparks grew from the weapon impact, and vaporized hull plating was thrown up from the blast. It quickly engulfed him like a glowing swarm of bees, the buzzing shards of metal washing over him, stinging at his suit, tearing and biting and ripping and tearing—
But the suit held. Miraculously. Damn British engineering was better than he expected. An American suit would have been sliced into Swiss cheese by a blast like that. A piece of metal clanged off his helmet, sending twin cracks over the perspex that created additional, smaller cracks, like a fork of lighting across his vision. But it held.
He was, however, confident that the suit would not take another hit like that.
Speed. Speed. Mattis’s breath came in ragged gasps, but he forced himself on, and soon the battle behind him retreated, the bright light of the firing Chinese fleet fading into the horizon. For a second—just a second—he thought they might make it.
The Caernarvon’s magnetic grappler flew out, seeking some target he could not see but could totally guess: the engines, presumably from a wrecked Chinese ship. Even a fully powered magnetic grappler had no hope to remove the engines from an intact vessel… he would have to be targeting the wrecks. Hopefully the blast had damaged its engines and rendered them useless. Hopefully—
One of the Chinese ships exploded, bursting into a billion flaming pieces. Flaming pieces that slowly, almost teasingly slow, began to float through space toward the Caernarvon. It seemed liked a snail’s pace at Mattis’s distance, but it must have been hundreds of meters a second in reality.
“Move!” Mattis howled, his voice coming out like a strangled cat. Shrapnel from armor-piercing weapon impacts was one thing, but this was hundreds of tons of metal being flung directly at them. Dense metal, heavy metal, moving fast. The AP round had thrown up a dangerous cloud of sparks, but this would do so much more. Ten times more. Fifty.
No suit could sustain that.
The wave drew closer and closer. Mattis’s gloved hand grabbed hold of the aft airlock door, yanking it open. He flung himself inside, closely followed by Yim, then Blair.
“Spears?” he called. “Captain Spears, hurry!”
“We must cl
ose the door,” said Yim, reaching for the handle.
Mattis swatted his hand away. “No! Not yet! She’s still out there!”
And then Spears was through the door. She pulled it closed and yanking the handle to seal it.
A powerful, tremulous vibration washed over the ship, shaking their boots so hard it nearly pushed them off their feet. Blair crashed into Mattis, then Yim fell on top of her, and everyone was shaken around like a can of loose change, bashing against each other, against the walls and floor and roof as tons of red hot debris slammed into the Caernarvon, the force rattling everything.
Then, mercifully, it ended.
“Everyone okay?” Mattis panted. “Nobody hurt?”
“Yeah,” said Yim.
“I’m good,” said Spears.
“I threw up in my suit,” said Blair.
Mattis grimaced and reached out from the pile, awkwardly grabbing hold of the airlock cycle handle and pulling it. Air rushed in, filling up the tiny airlock as the four of them disentangled and, with considerable effort, pulled themselves up into a standing position.
“Well,” said Spears, unclipping her helmet and impatiently tearing it off. Her helmet had a huge, ominous crack along the front and a spiderweb mark where shrapnel had slammed into it. “That was fun.”
Blair similarly removed her helmet. Then she upended it and emptied her guts into the makeshift perspex bowl.
Poor kid.
“We ready?” he asked, drawing his pistol and pulling back the slide. “It’s time to go kill me another Spectre.”
“Sounds good,” said Spears, similarly drawing her weapon.
“And me,” said Yim.
Everyone looked expectantly at Blair, who coughed and bravely patted her pistol.
“That’s a yes,” said Mattis, pushing open the door that lead into the ship, letting his weapon lead the way.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Corridor near the ventilation shaft
HMS Caernarvon
Empty Space
Using his multitool, Mattis pried off the hatch leading to the ventilation shaft, his pistol-mounted flashlight shining down the depressingly tiny metal box. Without his suit he could barely fit through… maybe.
Now he understood why Spears had told them not to bring rifles. They simply wouldn’t fit.
“Ladies first,” said Mattis.
“Age before beauty,” countered Spears.
With a groan, Mattis squirmed into the tube like a worm, crawling on his hands and knees, squirming through the narrow passage. It was tight going; he had to shove his shoulders forward, push with his knees, gain ground with a little wiggle, then lock his legs and shove his shoulders forward again. Shove, push, wiggle, lock, repeat. Behind him, the rest of the team repeated his motions, Yim right behind him, Blair next, followed by Spears. Blair seemed to be doing the best; her tall, slender frame giving her an edge in the narrow confines.
The shaft sloped downward, in toward the core of the ship, which compounded the claustrophobia; it was a mixture of getting stuck and of slipping and sliding forward into the ship, smashing against the bottom, and dying.
“You know,” said Spears, “Spectre said he didn’t care about you, right? But then he pulled off this complicated, extremely convoluted plan, all to get his hands on the Chinese engines.” She grunted as she shifted forward. “There’s some part of me that thinks that, out of all the rubbish he’s ever slung, that’s the worst. He has agents in the Chinese military, according to Admiral Yim, so surely there must have been an easier way to get what he wanted. But he truly wanted to get you as well. It was personal, I’ll wager. And he isn’t above killing two birds with one stone.”
“Well,” said Mattis, “this bird doesn’t want to be killed, with a hunk of rock or otherwise.”
Spears chuckled lightly as she continued to drag herself through the passage, huffing and puffing. “You’re probably right. Spectre is getting a little sick of losing. I think this is as personal for him as it is for me.”
Spears said nothing, and neither did anyone else as they strained and shifted forward.
Minutes passed, broken only by the repeated shuffling along the tight vent and the shudder of weapons impacts rocking the ship. Ominously, the sounds grew less and less frequent, until the only noises were the faint hum of outgoing shells. And then nothing.
“Not good,” muttered Spears from the rear. “Blasted arse would only stop shooting if he was out of targets… that must mean those ships are gone. I’m sorry, Yim.”
“They tried to arrest me,” said Yim dully. “It’s okay.”
Mattis knew he would not feel the same way if the situation was reversed, but he said nothing. There was nothing that could be said that would make it okay.
A faint tremor spread throughout the ship, like a second-long aftershock, then it faded away into nothing.
“Spears?” asked Mattis. “What was that?”
“We just entered Z-space,” she said. “The old girl always shudders a bit, but you can only feel it near the outer hull.”
Damn. “Looks like Spectre got what he wanted.”
“Looks like,” she said, grimly. But there was nothing for them to do but press on.
Time ticked away. Kinks in the shaft slowed them down enormously, and twice Mattis encountered large fans which he removed and passed back down the chain. So much lost time… how long had they been crawling? It felt like an eternity.
“We should be coming up on the vent soon,” said Spears, dropping her voice to a hush. Mattis could barely hear her from the front. “Good thing too, my arms are getting mighty tired.”
Mattis was anxious to escape the stale air in the vent and the smell of four sweaty bodies jammed into one narrow square pipe. But body odor was a big part of the job, and nothing could top what he had survived in basic training. He continued the endless process—shove, push, wiggle, lock—and then he saw it.
The vent. A thin series of slits in the metal floor, long and covered by three fans, which were covered in cobwebs. Spears was right; this system hadn’t been used in some time. From below, he could hear the faint whirring of computer systems and the chirping of bridge alarms.
Mattis risked a peek into the vent but couldn’t see anyone. The command chair was empty, the bridge crew slumped over their consoles, bloody flowers boomed on their backs. “Looks clear,” he whispered.
Yim gave an OK symbol, then moved his hand down, as though he was patting the ground. A signal to descend.
No kidding, but I can barely see anything…
Slowly, carefully, Mattis used his multitool to unscrew the fans, each fan secured by four screws. Each turn made a soft squeak that, he feared, would doom them all. But he kept at it, turning and turning until the first screw came out. Then the second. Then the third. Then the fourth. He put them aside carefully, cut the wires of the fan, and handed it back to Yim.
Two more to go. Mattis cautiously unscrewed them, similarly handing the dusty things back to Yim. Then only the grate itself remained.
Right as he went to lift it out, he accidentally knocked an overlooked screw off the edge and down into the bridge. It clattered to the deck, ringing loudly as it bounced and tumbled, rolling under a chair.
“Shit,” he whispered.
A burst of gunfire sprayed into the ceiling, rounds splashing against the roof, one zipping just inches away from his elbow. Spears shouted out in pain and he knew that they couldn’t stay here.
Mattis jammed his pistol down the hole and fired wildly, blindly, dumping his magazine. The rounds screamed and bounced inside the bridge, slamming into computers and chairs and consoles. The gunfire below continued, then abruptly stopped. With whoever was in there suppressed, or hopefully dead, he threw his pistol in and then wiggled toward the vent, plunging in head first. He swung himself in using the lip, landing awkwardly on his feet.
He suddenly wished he hadn’t thrown his gun away, but he couldn’t see Blackwood-Spectre anywhere. Nor
the source of the gunfire. Nothing but the dead bridge crew.
Then he saw it. A submachine gun on a tripod right at the rear of the bridge, rigged to a microphone and thermal camera. It tracked him even now, its trigger depressed but ammunition expended.
He ran over and shoved the thing over. “Clear! There was a turret. It’s safe now.”
Yim hopped down landing heavily and joining him. Then Blair.
“Spears?” asked Mattis, looking anxiously to the opening in the vent. “Captain?” The ceiling was littered with bullet holes where the turret had sprayed down the roof.
Bullet holes dripping blood.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Bridge
HMS Caernarvon
Z-space
“Yim,” Mattis croaked, his heart in his throat. “Gimme a boost up. We gotta get her out of there.”
Yim did so, hooking his fingers together and crouching. “Go.”
Mattis climbed up into the offered hand, reaching up and grabbing the lip of the vent, pulling himself upward. Spears lay in the shaft, slumped forward, a thin line of blood running down from her body toward a bullet hole.
Shit. This was bad. Mattis hopped up into the vent, crawling forward. “Spears? Spears, you okay?”
“Fine,” she said, the words weak and coming through clenched teeth. “Just… a spot of bother is all.” She extended her hand. “Be a good chap and help me down, will you?”
He took her hand, squirming backward, pulling her toward the hole in the floor above the bridge. “This way,” he said gently. He turned and called over his shoulder. “Blair! Get a corpsman up here!”
“But I thought it wasn’t safe,” said Blair.
“Just do it!” He tugged Spears back until he was able to drop back down onto the bridge, stepping into Yim’s hands and then, slowly, carefully, lowering Spears down to the deck. She’d been hit twice, once in the arm, which shouldn’t be too serious, and once in the left side of her chest.
The Last Strike: Book 5 of The Last War Series Page 23