by Drew Wagar
That shouldn’t have happened…
The pressurised tinkling sound crackled through the ship.
The Cobra bobbed in a slight gust as he approached the landing bay. The ship rolled to port. Coyote compensated. A faint snapping sound echoed through the ship.
Warning! Hull breach!
Warning! Hull breach!
Coyote could see the warning indicator showing a problem with the starboard undercarriage housing. Something had failed. A screeching hiss told him that poisonous gas was forcing its way into the Dark Star’s lower hull.
‘I’ve got a problem here,’ he called out, grabbing a remlok from the bulkhead and strapping it over his face.
The hull auto-sealing systems were trying to block the leak but they’d been designed to keep breathable air in, not high pressure poisonous gas out. The internal seals came down a moment later but the damage indicators showed that the cargo bay and forward ‘tween hulls area was already being breached. Anything in there was going to be subject to the external pressure within minutes and there were critical components that wouldn’t take kindly to that kind of treatment.
He stabbed at the alert commands trying to cancel the alarm sounds but they refused to be silenced. He swung the Cobra around and boosted the ship towards the landing bay.
‘You’ve lost the starboard landing strut!’ Rebecca called out, her voice high with alarm. ‘Watch it or you’ll roll when you hit the ground!’
‘Just getting on the ground will do me,’ Coyote snapped back. ‘Hold tight everyone; this isn’t going to be pretty.’
Warning! Life support mechanism damaged!
Warning! Inimical atmosphere detected!
The instruments flickered as the gas forced its way further into the damaged ship.
Warning! Internal pressure seals : failure imminent!
The Cobra bucked in the cross wind. Coyote tried to stabilise only to find the lateral thrusters weren’t responding, their fuel lines already compacted by the incoming pressure surging through the lower deck systems. The Cobra cannoned into the bay wall amidst a shower of sparks as its shields discharged.
Warning! Shields offline!
Warning! ECM System Damaged!
Warning! Hull Integrity failing!
The Cobra shuddered drunkenly, nosing downwards as it rebounded. Coyote triggered the engines and the Dark Star blasted forward and slammed into the floor of the bay with eye watering violence. More sparks flew as the Cobra screeched across the metallic floor of the bay, canting over on its starboard side as the remains of the undercarriage on that side collapsed.
Warning! Primary Power Bus damaged! Switching to Auxilary Supply!
‘He’s in!’ Rebecca yelled. ‘Close the frakkin’ doors! Quick!’
The impact had half stunned Coyote. His vision blurred and he struggled to retain control. A wave of pain washed over him, stabbing out from his neck. He tried to turn the Dark Star but the controls no longer responded. The ship slid across the bay floor, yawing to one side as the remains of the undercarriage dug in, dragging a huge scar across the bay. It narrowly missed Rebecca’s Spectre and ground to a halt just short of the bay wall.
Warning! Internal pressure seals failing!
‘You ok?’ He vaguely heard Rebecca’s voice trying to get his attention. ‘Frak! Hurry it up with the doors!’
Coyote felt a sudden weight start descending on him. The remlok could keep him breathing but there was nothing it could do against the incoming pressure. He tried to respond but the rising pressure prevented him uttering a sound.
This wasn’t quite how I saw it all ending…
He tried and failed to draw a breath, his vision began to tunnel in around him. He saw the pressure doors above him start to close, slowly narrowing the space above him and blocking out the dismal atmosphere of the gas-giant. Then everything faded out.
Chapter 6
Udian moved swiftly down the dark corridors that composed the inside of the platform. He was consumed with an inhuman alacrity. Had he still possessed a human body he’d have been running at breakneck speed, panting at intervals before continuing on at whatever pace he could manage. As it was, his shielded maglev system had merged seamlessly with the purpose built corridor tracks running throughout the entirety of his station. His metal body hummed gently, maintaining speed without complaint, without pause.
The urgency was no less however. Things aboard the Catechism were not as he had anticipated.
Udian had staff aboard the Catechism supervising the provisioning of the bio-weapons. Without informing the rest of the combateers he’d been attempting to contact them since they’d arrived in the Ermaso system but there had been no response. The Catechism was normally arrayed in a high orbit around Ermaso 2, drawing power from the enormous static discharges generated by the gas-giant’s overwhelming magnetic field. Submerging itself deep in the gas-giant’s atmosphere was an extreme defensive technique.
The Catechism had been attacked; boarded. It took little imagination to determine who might have been behind that. What concerned Udian far more was how they’d found about the platform and its location – and how they’d gotten inside.
He slowed as he approached the navigation and defense facilities that lined the outer edge of the Catechism. His worst fears were confirmed as he approached the main control deck. The doors were forced, twisted and melted. Bodies were strewn across the corridor, some in a state of complete dismemberment. Some the faces were still recognisable but most were not. All shared a look of extreme agony frozen on their pale dead flesh, mouths locked in terrifying rictus grins. Blood coated the floor and walls. None were left alive. Udian could detect only residual body heat.
Closer inspection indicated the indiscriminate destruction of some kind of explosive projectile weapon. The scientists aboard the Catechism had been slaughtered and not long before. Perhaps a day or so.
Udian cautiously moved into the deck. Immediately a green laser flickered across him, swiftly scanning his form.
‘Identify,’ a soft female voice sounded.
‘Shulth, Udian Foraga,’ he replied, a sense of relief washing over him. The internal systems were intact.
Which means…
Around him were more bodies, sliced, cauterised, neatly eviscerated. They weren’t human remains. Udian allowed himself a moment of satisfaction on having the foresight to place automated defensive systems within the Catechism as a secondary defence against incursion.
‘Identity verified.’
He accessed the on-board systems, reviewing the logged events without reacting.
Frustrating.
He keyed the core-comm system, using a personalised security code. A small screen illuminated nearby.
Udian’s optical receptors registered the face of Garew Ward.
‘Progress?’ Garew snapped.
‘We’ve arrived,’ Udian replied slowly. ‘But Catechism has been breached.’
Garew looked dismayed.
‘Already? How?’
‘That’s rather academic at this point,’ Udian replied. His left fine manipulator arm fluidly retrieved a piece of diced flesh from the floor. It was coated in a hard slick and armoured exoskeleton, inside green ochre and swiftly decomposing muscle and fat glistened obscenely. He waved it at the core-comm receiver before dropping it carelessly on the floor.
‘Frak…’ Garew replied, having seen the decapitated remains of the Thargoid warrior.
‘The lab appears to be intact,’ Udian continued. ‘However it appears that the final tests were not conducted before my scientists were summarily dismembered.’
‘Then we don’t know if the bio-packs are efficacious?’ Garew looked alarmed.
‘We do not.’
‘Then you’d better establish that as a priority.’
‘I concur,’ Udian acknowledged. ‘It may require…’
‘Do whatever it takes. Use the woman.’
‘Plan B?’ Udian prompted.
‘Do
n’t screw this up,’ Garew snapped back.
'Your cadence is unacceptable,' Udian bristled.
Garew’s eyes narrowed. ‘Just get those weapons to Beenri. You know what’s at stake. Call me when you’re back en-route.’
Udian shut the core-comm down and thought for a moment, weighing possibilities.
Mind made up, he strode quickly from the control deck, his metallic limbs crushing the discarded parts of a Thargoid warrior to pulp.
By the time the outer aperture had closed and the whoosh of the air recycling pumps had started Rebecca had made it outside her own ship, a Remlok strapped over her face. The pressure was still too high but it was bearable and oxygen was flooding into the bay, the poisonous red gas of the outside atmosphere being quickly dispelled. Rebecca staggered down the gangplank of the Spectre only to see Udian leaving his own ship and heading towards the interior airlock door.
‘Hey! Udian, we need to… where the frak are you going?’
She watched in astonishment as the machine creature stepped into the airlock and the doors closed behind him, totally ignoring the crashed and buckled Dark Star in the corner of the bay.
Son of a ‘goid!
Rebecca ran over to the Cobra as fast as she could, feeling the atmosphere stinging her exposed skin. The gas was acidic, fortunately its potency was being reduced by the huge hangar pumps. She quickly looked under the hull but with the collapsed undercarriage there was no way to access the inside of the ship via the cargo bay. She ran around the flank of the Cobra’s left wing pod to see if she could gain access from the rear hatches, running full pelt into Derik, who’d clearly had the same idea. He wasn’t wearing a Remlok, his reptilian ancestry enabling him to filter the toxic atmosphere.
‘Rear hatch!’ Rebecca yelled, gasping for breath.
‘After you sister,’ Derik replied. ‘Where’s Udian?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone? Gone where?’
‘Inside! He didn’t stop to help, the ‘stard. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else here!’
Derik punched at the Cobra’s rear hatch control. Fortunately the door opened immediately. Rebecca followed the big lizard inside.
‘We’ll deal with him later,’ Derik said. ‘Let’s get Coyote.’
Red lights flickered inside the Cobra’s cramped rear access ports. They ignored the grav-tube to the lower deck and made their way towards the cockpit. The internal door before them was still closed. Derik punched the controls again but this time the door refused to move.
‘Sealed,’ Derik snapped, looking at the door closely. ‘Locked from the others side I guess. We’re not going in that way. You ever flown a Cobra?’
‘Years ago.’ Rebecca acknowledged. ‘We can’t blast it, it’s five centimetre Duralium. Laser will bounce around in here like a Trumble in a vege farm.’
‘Any other ideas?’ Derik said, looking around the compact space.
‘Floor panels,’ Rebecca snapped, dropping to her feet. ‘There should be a conduit which runs above the cargo bay from the laser coolant panels to the rear of the ship, you can reach the cockpit from there, assuming it’s intact.’
Derik helped her to pull up the corrugated grav-plating from the bottom of the corridor. It took them precious minutes to lever the heavy tiles out of the way. Rebecca peered down and then jumped into the recessed area below, with Derik peering down over her. She crawled forward and looked at the access panel in front of her. It had a manual override which she pulled. It was stuck, she battered at it but was unable to move it.
‘Let me try,’ Derik said, lifting her effortlessly out of the pit and grabbing the handle. Swift cranks by his powerful muscular arms had it freed and open in a moment. Derik squinted into the darkness beyond.
‘Not good,’ he grimaced.
Rebecca joined him, assessing the situation. The small conduit was clearly buckled itself, with the floor having half risen up halfway down its length, the distance between the roof and the floor being measured in centimetres.
‘Pressure leakage from the cargo bay must have buckled it,’ Derik sighed. ‘That’s not going too…’
‘I can do it,’ Rebecca announced.
‘Are you mad? It’s too narrow,’ the lizard hissed. He was at least twice as big as her in most directions.
‘How else are we going to get him out?’ she replied. She looked back in the conduit; measuring, calculating.
‘You’ll get stuck!’
‘I need some decom grease,’ she announced after a moment.
‘Say what?’ Derik looked at her in bewilderment.
‘Decom grease, for flesh born parasites…’
‘I know what it is!’ Derik roared. ‘What the frak do you need it for now?’
Rebecca pulled off her Remlok and started pulling off her tatty blue spacers outfit.
‘I’m thin but I’m not that thin,’ she snapped. ‘Find some! Hurry!’
Derik growled and shook his head, jumping back up to the corridor above, flicking his tail angrily.
‘First it’s entertaining, then it’s a dance troup, now it’s a frakking simian strip show. This mission just gets better…’ He rifled through the medical supplies in the nearby cabinets. Coyote’s collections of exotic medical supplies were strewn around the floor until Derik found what he was looking for.
‘Here!’ he yelled back. ‘This do?’
He jumped back down to be confronted by Rebecca’s pale naked body. She grabbed the tub of grease unselfconsciously.
‘Perfect. Help me with this.’ She opened the tub and began smearing herself with the thick unpleasant grease.
‘Oh joy…’ Derik growled, dipping his claws into the gunk. ‘Just when you think it can’t get worse… ’
‘Bet you do this all the time,’ Rebecca said with a coquettish wink.
‘If you think the sight of some hairless monkey covered in foul smelling grease extracted from the backside of some randomius-forsaken creature turns me on, you clearly don’t know me very well.’
Esei better not find out about this or I’m going back to Tionisla in a body-bag!
It didn’t take long to plaster her body in the slimy sludge. Rebecca dropped to her knees and crawled into the conduit, flattening herself against the floor, her body blocking out the light from the other end.
‘How is it?’ Derik called.
‘It stinks!’
‘You think you’ve got problems. You’re not the one with the sensitive olfactory glands!’ the lizard shot back.
Rebecca wriggled herself forward into the narrowest part of the conduit, feeling the cold metal against her shoulders, breasts and elbows. It chilled her, goose-bumps forming all over her skin.
She managed to inch forward, sucking her breath in to get her ribcage over the threshold of the upward dent in the floor. She flailed around trying to get a purchase on something ahead of her in order to pull herself through. She could hardly breathe in that position, she had to find something. She couldn’t turn her head enough to see clearly what was ahead of her. She gasped in the confined space, claustrophobia and panic beginning to rise around her.
Derik could see she wasn’t moving.
‘What’s up?’
‘I can’t pull myself through,’ Rebecca cried, struggling again.
‘This is no good,’ Derik announced. ‘I’m going to pull you back.’
‘No!’ Rebecca’s fingers touched something but her greasy fingers slipped off it once, twice… a third time. ‘There’s something… I can almost reach it!’
She stretched herself, straining her back and arm as far as it would reach; cramp began to spasm in her muscles. Her fingers closed over something hard and she clasped it, pulling herself forward. Sharp edges and torn metal in the floor sliced into her skin as she pulled her hips across the threshold. She cried out in pain.
‘Rebecca? Rebecca!’ The lizard shouted from the other side as her legs disappeared through the narrow aperture. He could just make out Rebecca’s
slim form silhouetted against the faint illumination from the other end of the conduit. He could see she was nursing her stomach, her breath visible in short sharp puffs of moisture in the darkness.
‘It’s alright.’ She gasped, catching her breath.
‘You sure?’ the lizard’s voice echoed from the other end of the conduit.
‘Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not male,’ she managed. She looked around her and pushed up on the panel above her head, straining against it. Derik could see she was already tired, her muscles straining and her arms trembling as she tried to move the heavy flooring out of the way.
With a cracking sound it came free and she managed to shove it aside, falling back to the ground inside the conduit.
‘Go girl!’ Derik enthused.
Rebecca pulled herself up into the Dark Star’s cockpit on her hands and knees, raising her head to look around her.
Coyote was slumped in the pilot’s chair. He was strapped in place, a Remlok mask locked over his face. The instrumentation was flickering off and on, indicating the lower hull damage. She coughed, some of the poisonous atmosphere remained. She staggered to her feet and weaved across to the chair, turning it towards her. Coyote was unconscious.
She pulled the Remlok from his face. His skin was pale, drawn and covered in a thin film of cold sweat. He wasn’t breathing. She fumbled with the restraining harnesses and managed to pull him out of the chair and onto the floor, pulling his jumpsuit apart and pressing an ear to his chest.
No heartbeat! The damn Remlok has failed!
Basic emergency training told her what to do. She straddled him and began rhythmically pumping his chest trying to restart his heart and then switched to mouth to mouth resuscitation, forcing air into his lungs.
Come on you arrogant ‘stard…
Her arms were already burning with fatigue as she tried to keep up the motion on his ribcage. She stopped to breath for him again, cramp making her arms tremble.
Coyote remained motionless; his skin cold, damp and pale.
Fight it you son of a ‘goid! Come on, please….