‘Basalt, this is Crystal. The altered urchins, together with the slowing drones, will be in position in forty-five minutes. I am deploying a Compressor.’
‘Acknowledged. All craft acknowledge forty-four-minute warning.’ They all lasered in their receipt of message.
Marko had only ever seen a Compressor used a few times before and did not want to be anywhere close when it went off. Thinking about them, he knew it was science that Fritz probably understood, but he would be one of the very few. The device was a useful piece of equipment in that, when detonated, it would vaporise anything within a two-hundred-metre sphere of itself, and then suck the resulting material down into a tiny and rapidly deteriorating black hole. But they could only be deployed for relatively small targets; the Compressor’s components were too unstable for making bigger devices, as Marko knew from his own experiences. Very early in his military career he had been part of a rescue squad that went looking for survivors from one of the Gjomvik development labs that had been tasked to make a bigger Compressor device. They found a lot of exotically coloured dust, plus one very big crater, which was all that remained of a large facility that had employed hundreds of people.
Their lasers were still firing, picking off small pieces of material, as Patrick tried to make sure that the cleanup was complete. Distant flashes of magenta showed that the Compressor had done its job, expanding in its odd-coloured fireball then collapsing in seconds. The bulk of the Hauler had long since disappeared starwards when the colonel called a halt to the cleanup, just as the first of the urchins from the gas giant started to appear on the distant sensors, coming out to investigate the faint signatures of antimatter drives.
‘All ships form on Basalt,’ the colonel ordered. ‘Salvage, are you able to locate the AI Core?’
Major van Beere answered. ‘Negative. It’s either moving around, or there is something shielding our sensors, or it is aware of us and determined to make life difficult. We have fired the wormhole jumper units against the cone’s outer hull. Control is handed across to you, Colonel.’
‘Right. Form up on your lander and jump when ready.’
Marko watched the other units jump ahead of the cone-shaped nose piece as the colonel also located her own small LP and jumped as well. He was the last one to move up against Basalt and as soon as Patrick felt the contact he jumped them towards the system’s Oort Field far out into interstellar space, where millions of comets formed a halo around the system. A few seconds later the view had changed considerably and they hoped that they would be able to operate on the nose segment in peace, as the colonel came back on the comms links.
‘Good work so far, people. Has anyone been able to learn anything from the Hauler core?’
Fritz replied: ‘No, Colonel, there is just a stream of gibberish coming from it on all frequencies. There is a subroutine which is heavily encoded that I am trying to decipher. Do we know when the representative Hauler will arrive? It may be able to assist.’
Patrick answered the AI. ‘ETA is approximately eighteen hours away.’
The colonel acknowledged then made some suggestions. ‘Crew, rotate for a meal and a freshen-up. We start looking for the core in earnest in two hours’ time.’
*
They were all back in their craft waiting for orders when Major Longbow laid out the problem. ‘OK, the core is an armoured sphere ten metres in diameter. It is normally fixed in position inside another heavy armoured shield. From what we can see with the gravity sensors and the listening sensors against the outer hull, there is something moving it around on the inside of the nose segment in a random pattern. Every time we slice a piece of the exterior away it creates a greater risk of contamination. We have done well so far, but the odds are now stacking up against us. Every Intel drone sent into the segment is compromised and destroyed within minutes by something we do not understand.’
He paused, looking at a screen, before continuing. ‘It is almost as if the segment is alive and actively challenging us. We now have thirteen hours before the Hauler Chrysanthemum arrives. I do not want to disappoint him as he is a member of the inner sanctum of the Haulers’ Collective. The only really good news is that the main body of the Hauler has now reached such velocity that its fate is inevitable, so at least we do not have to worry about it being intercepted by friend or foe. Anyone have any bright ideas?’
‘We could employ the urchins, Major.’
‘How so, Stephine?’
‘The altered ones are destroyed, but it would not take a great deal of effort to transport a few from the gas giant to here using the same method as when we captured the first one. I believe that we could then fire small encapsulated amounts of antimatter onto the segment and allow the urchin to chase them. If nothing else, we would see what happens. We could take our ship and go get them if you wish.’
They all waited for his reply. ‘Interesting. OK. Do it.’
Harry added: ‘While we are waiting for the captain to return we could use some of our anti-urchin tech and peel back a few layers of whatever it is that is now exposed where we have removed the outer hull. It appears organic.’
Colonel White came in and answered Harry. ‘Right. We shall do that as well, Sergeant Major. Major van Beere, any thoughts?’
After a long pause van Beere answered. ‘I must admit to being completely baffled, ma’am. We are out of our depth here. I’m sorry that I have no suggestions. I would prefer that we destroy everything and fly away. It is the only way we can be sure of containing this threat.’
The colonel nodded. ‘Agreed, but unfortunately, we must endeavour to assist the Haulers in answering their questions.’
*
On the control deck of Basalt Major Michael Longbow looked at his screens and zoomed in on the Albatross lander. ‘OK, everyone, ease back five hundred metres. Harry, you have control.’
Harry nodded and started tapping his screens. ‘Firing.’
A steady stream of oxygen and hydrogen projectiles started to explode against one of the exposed areas of the sixty-metre-long cone shape which was the detached nose segment. Harry steadily walked the rounds about a central point, slowly excavating a sizable crater in the material. Suddenly, a huge tendril of rapidly accelerating material ripped out through the side of the sphere and reached across to the lander. Everyone in range reacted with everything they had to fire at the tendril and it stopped only metres from reaching the Albatross. It snapped back into the sphere, obviously damaged, but still alive.
Major Longbow yelled out, ‘Cease fire! Shit! What the fuck are we dealing with here?’
‘Major Longbow. This is Crystal. It would appear that during the lengthy time the Cactus 3 was in isolation something grew and evolved, possibly combining the best and worst of the biological weapons together with the urchins. What we just saw was an extremely large feeding tendril from an urchin. We wounded it, but have really just annoyed it considerably. Unfortunately, it is now even more imperative that the records held in the Hauler core be accessed. This is a major development.’
‘I hate those fucking things,’ the major said. ‘OK, everyone hold position until Stephine and Veg get back.’
While they waited, the salvage crews targeted all the floating debris and vaporised the small pieces, or, as with the bigger pieces, nudged them together by deploying small explosive charges and then laser welded them into a slowly growing ball.
Stephine’s very beautiful craft popped into existence beside Basalt. Caught in the starlight, the flattened teardrop’s sleek and almost sensuous bulges shone slightly in the afterglow of the jump energies as Stephine opened comms. ‘We have two small urchins. I note that you had a little excitement! Yes, I agree with Crystal. The creature or creatures residing in the segment appear to be evolved urchins. Let’s see what it makes of real ones. I have sampled the skins of these and they are much closer to the others that we have encountered. They are in fact another racial type, but are still ninety-nine point nine per cent identical. The
y are also free from any contamination. With your permission, I am about to launch an encapsulated fragment of antimatter at the segment. I shall release one of the urchins a few moments later.’
The colonel gave Stephine the go ahead. As they watched on their individual screens, they could see the small package of antimatter move relatively quickly towards the segment. A few moments later an urchin burst out of its containment on the side of Stephine’s craft and actually jumped across the five hundred metres in a fraction of a second to be between the antimatter and the segment. As it enfolded the antimatter into itself, a huge tendril shot out from the segment and speared the urchin, dragging the thrashing, convulsing creature back into the cone.
‘Stephine, repeat that, please,’ the colonel requested. ‘This time allow the antimatter to make contact with the segment before releasing the urchin. Oh, and make the antimatter package one hundred per cent bigger.’
‘Acknowledged. On the way.’
As the antimatter package arrived, the area of the nose segment where the hull plate was nonexistent actually opened up like a mouth and then folded the energy package into itself. The urchin arrived on the surface a few moments later and violently attacked the writhing mass of tendril material, trying to get at the antimatter. An explosive fight ensued with the urchin tearing chunks away from the segment before it was seized and apparently consumed. Patrick once again took control of everyone’s lasers and burnt the debris.
Major van Beere commented thoughtfully. ‘Interesting. Fritz, can we speed up the decay of the energy packets surrounding the antimatter?’
Fritz took a few minutes to reply. ‘Yes, dangerous, but it can be done. We would have to get in a lot closer. What do you have in mind, Major?’
‘I want to peel off a strip of the hull plate around the entire circumference of the segment. Then launch multiple packets of encapsulated antimatter and see if we can create a reaction and split this whole thing in half. Obviously, antimatter is still attractive to the altered urchin.’
The high-pitched voice of Fritz posited another problem. ‘Interesting idea, Major, but consider what would happen if this thing accumulated enough antimatter to jump by itself.’
‘OK, good point, Fritz,’ the major acknowledged. ‘Let’s tease it. How long to set up the energy packets for rapid decay?’
After a few long seconds, Fritz said, ‘Couple of hours, tops.’
‘OK. Everyone, just concentrate on chewing as much off the surface of the nose cone as possible. Let’s arrange ourselves so that all craft can see everyone else’s lines of fire.’
So again everyone just watched and waited carefully lasered off as many chunks as possible when the gravity sensors showed them that the AI Core was out of the danger area, and played ‘dodge-ems’ with the tendrils when they came raging out.
The major gave another order. ‘As soon as we see another of those big tendrils, I want everyone to concentrate their fire on its base. Let’s try and cut it off.’
Moments later the opportunity presented itself but all that occurred was as soon as the lasers started to cut, other smaller tendrils came to the aid of the larger, pulling it back inside.
‘Michael,’ Stephine said. ‘I believe that there are some five or six individual urchin-type creatures inside the segment. The data that I have managed to collate shows that the biological weapons have been incorporated into the makeup of the urchin. The frightening thing is that there is also human DNA in the makeup together with that of various Avian creatures; as you’ll remember, the delivery system for the biological weapons were specially bred Avians. My conclusion is that these larger types of urchins are constructs, as there has, quite simply, not been enough time for them to evolve naturally.
‘Could it be that some of the original scientists were not dead but, rather, in cryno sleep when their laboratories were encased and taken on board the Hauler for the journey to Hades? Certainly, such a scenario would explain what has been happening, although the more disturbing aspect may be that some or all of the scientists made good their escape, and are now somewhere else with very potent biological weapons, based on a fusion with the urchins.’
Everyone went very quiet as they digested this latest possibility, then the colonel spoke up. ‘I agree with Stephine. I have been analysing the images we kept of the part of the Hauler we sent into the sun. I found no evidence that any human-compatible lander spacecraft were still present, which suggests someone used them to escape the Hauler. It is only a supposition though. The areas where they would normally be stored were heavily modified by whatever occupied the Hauler. The landers could still be there.’
Major Michael Longbow sat in his command module on Basalt’s bridge deck, frowned and scratched his head as he digested the information. ‘This is not good. OK, command decision time. Colonel, if we broke this segment into three, would the Compressors be able to destroy them individually?’
‘Um, stand by.’
As he waited for the colonel’s answer, he switched channels and asked, ‘Fritz, can you configure one of the Harpoons to lock onto the core and retrieve all the information from it? I now believe the core may be totally compromised.’
Fritz grumbled under his breath at yet another interruption, but replied calmly. ‘Yeah, should be able to sort that. I shall get Patrick to do it, though. Need another ten minutes to sort the antimatter packets.’
At that moment, the colonel came back on the comms. ‘Yes, the Compressors would handle the three sections. With that in mind, I shall now use a drone to move the captured material we have in hand to a safe distance and dispose of it.’
Michael Longbow nodded and ordered. ‘Right, here’s what we are going to do. As soon as Crystal returns, we are going to create a killing field. Stephine, you will command one group; colonel, you take the second; I will take the third. The antimatter packets will be spread to create two rings around the segment. As soon as those outer parts of the segment — and whatever is lurking under the surface — is gouged aside by the first set of ten antimatter packets, the second set will be launched and spaced out so that the urchin-type creatures will hopefully attempt to grab them. Patrick and Crystal, you will need to control them. No matter what happens as soon as anyone sees the core, yell and concentrate weapons while Patrick fires the Harpoon onto it. As soon as the data is lasered back, we then destroy everything including the core. Colonel, when you return, can you disperse your Compressors to form a field beyond the killing field and that way we can push everything against them. I just had another disturbing thought, people. We have not had a visit from any of our friends or counterparts in Admin procurements or weapons research. What’s the bet that someone already knows what has occurred? OK, team off.’
*
Two
Marko was attached to Stephine’s group to the right of Basalt, with the colonel’s group on the other side, so they had a fan-shaped firing base a kilometre wide.
The first wave of antimatter packets contacted the surface of the fragment and all reacted at the same instant, cutting two rough rings right around the centre of the cone’s remains some seven metres across and three metres deep. They could see the writhing masses of biological material rapidly filling the spaces and repairing itself just as the second wave of antimatter arrived. The effect was immediate and dramatic. The enormous urchins inside the segment erupted outwards to get at the antimatter, tearing the whole structure apart. Just as the tendrils reached up to touch the antimatter packets, the containment fields of the antimatter all collapsed, obliterating large swathes of urchin flesh.
The Cactus Core suddenly popped out above the separated segments, and Patrick wasted no time in hitting it with two Harpoons. Sacrificial drones swept in from the larger craft to push up against one of the three masses, as everyone continually fired upon their designated targets to prevent them from reforming into one mass. The pressure of the vaporising material, together with the drones, gradually pushed the three masses towards where the Comp
ressors waited. Marko had no idea what was happening to the Cactus Core as he was working hard with Stephine and Julie Mapp, pushing their target mass as far to the right as possible. Stephine activated one of the Compressors and it closed on the twisting, writhing mass which had systematically destroyed the drones.
‘First Compressor five minutes to detonation. Shields closed and get clear,’ the colonel yelled.
All the craft rolled away and powered their engines to maximum as they needed at least five kilometres of separation. The Compressors went off one after the other, shredding the masses of horribly contaminated material down to individual atoms. Once the all-clear was given, the colonel then had them form a series of sweeps looking for and destroying any remaining material.
Many long hours later they held station off Basalt while the exposed surfaces of every craft and ship were minutely inspected by engineering drones for any possible contamination. Being the last in the queue Julie and Marko were finally cleared. They individually docked with Basalt, landing on their platforms and rotating back inside the hangar. After powering down their Skuas they went for a long shower and a decent meal.
As they were emerging from ablutions, Major Longbow made an announcement. ‘Crew, we managed to procure total data from the core. Chrysanthemum has also arrived in the system and will be joining us shortly. I have briefed him and he concurs with the decision to destroy the core. He has started to upload all the core’s data as well. There is a lot of useful information, but we will not know about the personality of the Hauler until Chrysanthemum decodes it for us. Stephine, you are the last in the queue. Crystal, you are cleared to dock when ready.’
‘My thanks, Michael. I shall join you shortly.’
Marko walked up the long spiral staircase to the bridge deck feeling very tired, but enjoying the exercise. He looked at Michael Longbow and frowned. ‘Boss, you don’t look too hot. You all right?’
Crystal Venom Page 9