Crystal Venom

by Steve Wheeler

  Marko heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Good. Nail. Thoughts?’

  The cat had been designed and built years earlier by Marko and Topaz as an information-gathering and -analysis ACE, and Nail now gave his opinions. ‘I agree with Tux. We should behave as if we are totally shut down until we know the intentions of the approaching craft. I also think it would be a good idea to opaque the canopy before they view us. I am interfacing with Tux and shall review all passive information.’

  ‘Flint. Can you jury-rig a unit for my comms piece? If I seal up, I won’t have a link to any of you.’

  ‘Actually, Marko, it is built into the suit. Will pick up the crew comms on any of its surfaces. Fritz will be keen to see the tech involved.’

  The canopy had shielded and the information from the Hanger’s passive sensors was being fed directly into his mind. The ship coming up behind them looked very much like the one Crystal had RVed with, but he could not see Crystal at all. As it approached, its nose slowly opened up to reveal a cavernous storage deck and they were slowly taken inside. It was so huge, it could have swallowed another five of them and still had room to spare. Two multi-hinged arms swung out from one of the walls and folded against Stephine’s ship, holding it firmly in place. They then started to swing the ship against what looked like even heavier locking mechanisms.

  Marko watched the developments with alarm. ‘Guys, we will lose the element of surprise very soon. I am only seeing light weapons inside this carrier deck. Right, there is Crystal up against the wall. Decision made. This frigate is hostile towards us. Nail, Tux, can you see anything else which is a real threat to us?’

  Nail answered that one. ‘Apart from Crystal’s rail guns, yes, numerous small autoguns. I have plotted their locations. The clamshell doors are closing. We could fire on the exposed mechanisms, destroy Crystal’s weapons, mess up the drive and then create lots of mayhem.’

  *

  Five

  ‘Sounds like a good plan to me,’ Marko said as he sealed up his visor. ‘Bring everything online and disengage the locks.’

  They popped away from Stephine’s craft as Tux fired a continuous burst from the side rail guns, shattering the hinge mechanisms of the huge clamshell doors. He then walked the gun’s rounds through the drive mechanisms and very effectively jammed two of the segments open. Marko flew the Hanger up and over the bulk of Stephine’s ship as Tux engaged Crystal with the Hanger’s belly linear accelerators, pulverising Crystal’s visible weapons, tearing large chunks out of the armoured cockpit and smashing the engine room. Simultaneously, the Hanger slewed upwards, then sideways, as Tux used the wing-mounted rail guns again to smash the heavy locking mechanisms closing on Stephine’s ship. With Crystal effectively wrecked, they set about finding and firing on every internal autogun that had been trying to engage them.

  Marko, in spite of what was happening, found himself grinning — the Hanger was such fun to fly. It had ring gimbal thruster units deployed around its centre so it could fly in any direction and Marko was thinking that it was like being inside a very punchy mosquito. Tux and Nail were actively assisting him in the control of the craft and were quite frequently overriding the controls to get the ship out of the way of incoming rounds. Suddenly, they found themselves without targets, so Marko had them chew some holes in the aft bulkhead to make life a little difficult for whoever was behind them, knowing that the holes would be autorepaired but taking satisfaction seeing the damage they were inflicting.

  ‘Bloody hell, what kind of ammunition are we using? The damage is ferocious!’

  Glint answered. ‘Every fifth round is antimatter in micro-containment. The rest are diamond or polyyne-coated iridium. And we have used thirty-five per cent of our current load.’

  ‘Right, how did this happen in the first place? There must be something on Stephine’s craft’s surface which has taken over control. We need to find whatever it is fast. At least, I sincerely hope it is something external. I would expect company soon in the way of fighters or mechs. OK, fast overflight. Nail, you look for it; Tux, look for targets; I’ll fly; Glint and Flint watch for the enemy.’

  They flew up and down Stephine’s ship three times before they finally found what they were looking for. There were three organic-looking limpet-type units which appeared to be fused onto the surface.

  After they had looked closely at the limpets for a few seconds, Nail said, ‘Marko, I believe that we are looking at an urchin-based technology.’

  ‘Rather than risking damage to Stephine’s craft,’ Flint suggested, ‘perhaps we should place a single antimatter round against one and see what happens?’

  Nail replied before Marko did. ‘Good idea. Yes, it will take a couple of moments to obtain some from the magazine. It will require one of us to place it.’

  Marko nodded and called, ‘Glint?’

  ‘On my way.’

  Nervously keeping a lookout all around them and waiting for the inevitable counterattack, they waited for Glint to grab a few antimatter rounds from the magazine, cycle through the belly airlock and place an antimatter round on the nearest limpet. He had no sooner laid the first shimmering slug of material than the limpet unfolded and seized it. Glint ran back across the hull after rapidly flicking the other two rounds over the other limpets, and leapt into the open airlock as the three limpets were in pursuit, sensing more antimatter. The limpets now raced towards the wall, creating a little space for Tux to get a clear shot; he slewed the belly guns around and blew them to pieces. Marko thought that sometimes it is impossible to remove the need for a creature’s basic desires, even when it has been greatly modified.

  Marko had expected Stephine’s ship would suddenly come to life, and wondered aloud if maybe they had missed some limpets, when a little Orbital fighter came flashing through the wrecked doors shooting at them. Marko was feeling the impacts on the hull. He rolled the Hanger, slid sideways and tucked them up against the wall behind some huge trusses and waited for the fighter to present itself. Three more fighters poured through the opening as Tux fired three high-acceleration mini-missiles across, knocking them out of the battle. The remaining fighter popped up and fired, hitting the starboard-side rail gun and immobilising it. Rounds then started hitting the belly gun which completely jammed. They could feel more explosive shells hitting the Hanger’s rear. Then, miraculously, the fighter exploded as did the armoured units coming through the rear bulkhead; Lilly and Jasmine, piloting their Hangers, had joined in the carnage.

  Marko yelled in relief and delight.

  ‘Hey guys, you decided to join us!’

  ‘We could not move,’ Jasmine replied. ‘We were completely blind and dumb. You must have done something to free us. Stephine says that she and Veg will have control in another ten or so minutes as they reconfigure their systems. Something is happening outside this frigate. It is being attacked. We have no idea by what.’

  Marko let out his breath, looking across the displays, and asked, ‘Status, Tux?’

  ‘Starboard gun damaged, self-repair inoperable, belly gun jammed, we have a major propellent leak and the primary propulsion is non-functioning. We can manoeuvre but we are down to fifteen per cent efficiency. Suggest that we use what little power is left to hard dock with our mother ship.’

  ‘Do it. Have we many missiles left?’

  ‘We have another twelve.’

  ‘Use them to destroy the antigravity generators in this part of the frigate. There is nothing like denying the opposition its tools and control mechanisms.’

  The missiles flashed away and struck their separate targets.

  The Hanger and its crew were sitting ducks, but Lilly and Jasmine were like angry hornets moving around looking for something to shoot at. Two more enemy fighters arrived inside the damaged doors and Marko could not quite work out if they were blown in or blown out; they were hit from both sides and exploded into small pieces. He was hoping that whatever was outside was on their side.

  He nursed the damaged Hanger and doc
ked up against Stephine’s ship with the hard comms links locking on.

  ‘Stephine, Veg, do you read?’

  ‘Yes, Marko. We are fine. Come on board; there is little you can do in that Hanger now.’

  Marko allowed himself a sigh of relief. ‘OK, guys, let’s go see our leaders.’ Tux took him down though the hatch and back inside Stephine’s craft while the ACEs followed.

  As they all slid to a stop in the main room, he saw that Stephine and Veg had a type of suit on that he had not seen before.

  Stephine briskly began to speak. ‘Once again, excellent work, Marko. Our thanks. We do not know what is outside this frigate. We do know that it is hostile to our captors and that it is time for payback. Behind you is the other part of the suit that you now call Tux. I am proud of you, Marko. You did what you needed to do in taking complete control. You will make a very good officer one day. Now, I’ll give you a few moments to take control of the heavy-weapon segment of your suit and then we’ll go for a walk.’

  With a groan almost escaping his lips, he realised that once again he had been put in a position he did not fully control and that Stephine had been pulling his strings all along. He mentally shrugged, and considered that that was what made a good commander: select the weapon and allow it to do the job. He physically shrugged and looked across at Veg.

  ‘Don’t worry, friend Marko,’ said Veg. ‘There are great benefits from being around Stephine. And yes, she still frightens me also.’

  Marko murmured to Tux to ‘do your thing’ and, in answer, the seat enclosed him further and parts folded out forming the little walker which walked backwards against the two-metre cube that Stephine had indicated was the heavy-weapon segment of his suit. Tux extended a spindly arm with an electronic jack in the end of it and plugged it into the cube. Marko’s HUD came alive and he gasped, seeing now that the thing behind him was an absolute brute. Tux opened up its computer and they effected control with the AI speeding up the process. The container proceeded to unfold a little, sufficient for Tux to lock into it.

  ‘What of the ACEs, Veg?’

  Stephine answered without bothering to look at him. ‘They are to secure the ship.’

  Marko nodded to himself as he ensured he was fully encapsulated in the machine, then said, ‘I have been meaning to ask, Stephine. What do you call this ship?’

  ‘Blackjack, it is called Blackjack. And no, there is no AI here. Let’s go, Marko. You are wasting time. Go through the main hatch and then deploy your suit.’

  Marko nodded again, and then directed a query to his suit. ‘Tux, how do I control the suit?’

  An even more metallic-sounding Tux answered. ‘Just look and think about what you want to do. I will then make it happen. Do not be surprised if I act before you do.’

  Marko sighed. ‘Comforting. Lead on.’

  As soon as they had been cycled out of Blackjack’s airlock, Tux deployed the armour, becoming a tall egg shape with the outer armoured shell deploying around them; antigravity and flight systems also opened out. They flew down towards the rear bulkhead of the frigate looking for something to hit. Marko thought of Stephine and Veg and a small rear-vision screen opened up in the HUD. The large black, four-armed and deeply sinister thing that he had seen a long time ago on Basalt — when they went up against the AI Lotus — was moving up behind him.

  He whispered: Tux. ‘What the fuck is that?’

  ‘That, Marko, is Stephine and Veg in the guise of Death.’

  ‘You getting all poetic on me, Tux?’

  ‘No, Marko, just stating the obvious.’

  Marko pursed his lips and shook his head wondering what he was involved in, as he mused aloud. ‘OK, two units against a slightly busted-up frigate. This is going to get even more interesting.’

  He thought of Lilly and Jasmine. The HUD showed him where they were and also lit up the ‘guard’ icon against them, showing him what they had been tasked to do. He saw the closed blast doors which lead aft through the frigate, then looked sideways and considered going straight through the wall instead. Various weapon icons came up as Tux started actively scanning the wall for gravity affect. Marko then simply wished the weakest part of the wall gone and two fat muzzled gimballed mortars fired twice, creating a gaping jagged hole: the blast punched inwards and then back out, towards them, as whatever atmosphere inside emptied with a maelstrom of shattered debris.

  They flew in through the hole and did the same again and again, steadily working their way aft. Gravity was again in effect, so they started to walk. Whenever something blocked them Marko simply wished it gone and the suit obliged as his engineering self-belatedly kicked in. He brought up consumable lists, discovering that they were down twenty-one per cent of available munitions. He wished to see a schematic of the frigate and they spent a few moments looking for a comms jack point. He was about to interface with it to learn of the frigate’s layout when the black monster beside him tapped on the outer casing and pointed across towards a universal language ship’s layout diagram.

  ‘The creature is trying to make contact with us, Marko,’ Tux said.

  ‘Let it.’

  The monster was a very strange mixture of Stephine and Veg. It had harsh martial undertones, and with a chill going down his spine Marko decided it was a weapon and that it was something completely alien to him. He realised that his friends were not really present inside the thing. It was strange and frightening and completely outside his understanding.

  ‘Sergeant Major. You are too slow in your advance. Follow me and keep up.’

  It then quickly walked through a set of airlock doors into a corridor and rapidly moved out of sight.

  ‘Shit. Where the hell did that go, Tux?’

  ‘I believe I know. We shall make the best time possible. We are not as nimble as the Black Death.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Is that what it is called?’

  ‘No, that is what I am calling it.’

  In spite of the situation, or maybe because of it, Marko giggled. ‘I’ll be buggered! You are developing a sense of humour.’

  They stomped down corridors until they found the central core of the frigate and started to make better time working their way down the primary spiral staircase. There was a large lift well in the centre, but that did not appeal. They often came across shattered automatic weapons and the remains of what looked like Expeditors of the Games Board.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this at all. Why are the Games Board military wing here and I don’t see a single camera monitor?’

  Finally they caught up with the Black Death as it was going up against a moderately large force outside what Marko assumed was the bridge deck of the frigate. The thing was an absolute blur of motion, so they simply parked themselves in the middle of the wide corridor and, as targets presented themselves, smashed them, keeping them away from the Black Death. At one stage a group of three enemy engaged Marko from the rear and the hits felt like pinpricks on his back. He looked over his shoulder and wanted the biting insects gone; three bursts of flechettes whistled out from the rear of his armour and chopped them down.

  He looked forwards again and saw that a smoking hole had appeared in the doors leading onto the frigate’s bridge. They stamped down towards it just as something heavy whacked Marko in the back, smashing him high against the wall. Someone had finally brought up a heavy anti-armour weapon. He rolled down, and even as he was landing, the mortars were firing, blowing the anti-armour squad back down the central stairway.

  Marko really hurt. After flashing on and off for a few seconds, the HUD came back up with flags against various components showing that they were still operational but that another big hit would put them out of the fight. Tux stood the cube unit up and they walked through the hole in the wall and stepped instantly to one side. The circular-shaped interior of the bridge was absolute chaos. The Black Death was still whirring around, slicing and dicing with its terrible blades. The GB personnel still alive were desperately trying to engage it, and
they were starting to have an effect as he thought that no matter how good the technology, sufficient firepower will eventually knock it down.

  He brought his remaining operational weapons to bear, but knew it was only a matter of time as they were both taking punishment. They worked their way around the bridge so he could also start bouncing mortar rounds out through the bridge door. That seemed to give them a little reprieve, but he was also starting to run out of ammunition. Then all the lights and gravity shut down. Tux was damaged and could only see about thirty per cent in infrared so life became a little more difficult.

  ‘Tux, we have to grab Black Death and go. We stay, we die. Use everything you have and blow a hole in the hull.’

  Tux started to fire on a specific spot, but the bridge on a ship was always built superbly tough and they were not making much headway.

  ‘Stop. Next time that Stephine-Veg monster orbits above us, grab the bloody thing and hold on tight. We have to go back to the corridor.’

  The Black Death monster had slowed down sufficiently for Tux to grab it tight as he and Marko ran for it. The armour ballooned out, opened up and took the Stephine and Veg creature into itself. It fought for a few seconds and then suddenly went totally limp; Marko wondered if they were dead. They turned and started to fight their way out into the corridor just as a terrific concussive blast blew through the frigate and everything shuddered.

  Marko looked across as the central core collapsed and hard vacuum sucked on everything. The blast had slammed them hard up against the wall again and Tux tried to hold on, but it was no use as the sudden out-gassing of such a huge volume grabbed them and along with thousands of objects they shot up the central core towards the nose.

  Marko hurt all over, which meant that Tux was in a bad way. Systems were shutting down throughout the armour until it was just down to both Marko and Tux’s core selves. They continued to bounce and tumble, caught in a maelstrom of materials, eventually shooting out through the wrecked clamshell doors and, along with most of the frigate’s loose contents, some of which were crew or others still alive in their suits, they found themselves drifting among the stars.