by Richard Fox
“Last team? And they didn’t mention Valdar’s vac suit being empty or—”
“They weren’t here for him, kid. Their mission was in armory bay omega and that’s where we’re going. Just hope they didn’t get pinched afterwards and the Geist came for what they did. Because if that’s empty…things are going to get difficult.” Hoffman stopped at a T-intersection and motioned for Ely to hide in a doorway. The connecting corridor was better lit.
The Strike Marine cocked an ear up then moved to join Ely, never turning his back on the intersection.
“What is it?” Ely asked quietly. Hoffman shielded Ely with his armor and turned the lenses on his helmet visor away from the weak light. The older man pressed a finger to the trigger on his gauss rifle and a faint whine rose and died away.
Ely clenched his jaw shut to stop his teeth from chattering. The edges of his ears ached from the cold and a headache grew from breathing the chill, dry air.
“No sign on deck twelve,” came from down the connecting corridor. “Yeah, they found the emitter in the shaft. And that’s all. Target didn’t check out like Terry guessed…How much? Dumbass should know better than to make a bet like that.”
A pair of shock troopers came down the other passageway. Ely felt a slight vibration through the deck plating as the two walked in step with each other through the intersection. Their bulky dark-green armor was meant for Earth-side duty, not the void, Ely noted when he glimpsed them from under Hoffman’s arm. Neither had their helmet on.
One glanced over his shoulder, then back to a screen on his forearm as they kept walking. “Did we do a trace through the machine shops?”
“Why bother? None of the doors have registered as opening.”
Hoffman remained still as a statue until the last sound of the troopers faded away.
“Come on.” Hoffman moved to the intersection at a crouch and did a combat peek around the corner.
“Why didn’t they see us?” Ely asked.
“Hard to see in the dark when your pupils are tight from the light.” Hoffman squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t remember the exact layout of this ship. Should’ve been a straight shot to the armory omega, but the blast doors are shut. If we had air and helmets, maybe we could go EVA…no, drakes are out there.”
“Why the armory omega? Why not the auxiliary flight deck or the recovery drone berthings?” Ely asked. “How is our way off the ship…let’s just get back to the potato.”
“We landed on the main deck. That’s where they came in,” Hoffman sighed.
Ely squinted at a backlit door panel. “We’re on deck nine, sector H…that means we’re about two junctions from munition stores. There’s a no-gravity dumbwaiter that’ll connect to the armory omega.”
“How do you know that?” Hoffman’s brow furrowed.
“What? You didn’t have to memorize the layout of the most famous ship in the Terran Union Navy for your junior engineering certificate? I got an invite to the Burton Engineering Academy for re-coding the mag inducement form factor on the—”
“You’re sure we can get to armory omega?” Hoffman grabbed Ely by the loose fabric on his vac suit.
Ely’s gaze went up and to the left as he remembered the layout, then nodded quickly.
“But why do we need to go to the old Strike Marine arms room?” Ely asked. “What’s in there?”
“Ship got a retrofit after the Kesaht War,” Hoffman said. “Still a place for warriors that need bullets, just on a different scale. Follow me.”
Hoffman led them through the intersection and down the opposite way the Commissariat troopers had gone. He made a sharp turn around a corner and thrust an arm out to stop Ely just as the smell of decay hit him. He mashed the back of his hand over his mouth and nose.
“Ely…you got to be tough right here. Just keep your eyes on my back and don’t look around, OK?” Hoffman moved to block Ely’s view.
“Why? What’s…” Ely looked down. A red ooze of barely thawed blood spread across the deck and kissed the edge of his boot.
“It’s a dead patch,” Hoffman said, crossing himself. “Sometimes it happens on a ship that’s adrift for too long. Bodies float to one spot and…they get tangled.”
Ely retched and tried to pull back, but Hoffman got him by the collar.
“Just keep walking or I will carry you,” the Strike Marine said.
Ely made a noise somewhere between fear and despair, then put a trembling hand on the carry handle high on Hoffman’s back. They moved forward and Ely squeezed his eyes shut. He heard the plop of his steps in a puddle and the smell grew even worse.
“Raise your right foot high. Forward. Now left,” Hoffman said.
Ely complied, but his toe scraped over something that had a little give to it. There was a wet hiss as Hoffman pushed something out of their way.
“How many are there?” Ely squeaked.
“Too many. Long step again…good job. There’s no good way to go. But these sailors died holding the line. Bought time for the Lady to get most of the surviving fleet away from Earth. The Breitenfeld died so that others could live and carry on the fight. They don’t deserve to be left out here, that’s for sure. The Crusade will see them buried proper. They’re good like that.”
Ely opened one eye slightly. Dead sailors were scattered across the deck like discarded dolls. Their limbs were tight and frozen at the bones, but thawed blood spilled through tears and gashes in their void suits. Not all were intact. A severed head stared up at Ely with blank eyes.
Ely gasped and shut his eye again.
“Told you.” Hoffman took him by a shoulder and turned him to one side. “Good now. Just don’t look back.”
Ely stopped and refused to take another step.
“It’s not fair. It’s not fair. This is Grandpa’s ship and it’s not supposed to—”
Hoffman shook him roughly. “No, it ain’t,” the Marine said. “Ain’t ever fair who dies and who doesn’t. So don’t look for it to be fair. Everyone back there had a name. They loved and were loved by someone. Every death is a tragedy, Ely, but you’re alive, so you’re not part of that. You keep going so you ain’t the dead one, and you stay alive long enough to keep your buddies alive too. Welcome to war. What you saw back there is losing. Winning ain’t that pretty either. Now keep moving. We’re almost to the magazine.”
They got to a door with red and yellow warning chevrons on the frame. Hoffman looked down at one hand and tapped fingertips to his thumb.
“If I remember right, the dumbwaiter’s on an angle. One deck slide to omega…Bob’s your uncle,” Hoffman said.
“Won’t we trip an alert when we open the door?” Ely asked.
“I’ll brace the door after we’re through. Zars will waste time breaking in, and by the time they’re through, you’ll be—huh. That’s funny.” Hoffman pointed at the door controls. There was a smudge on the dirt and frost. “Looks like someone’s—”
The door slid open and Hoffman was eye to eye with a rather surprised-looking shock trooper, his arms full of gauss cannon slugs the size of Ely’s forearm. Hoffman recruited the auxiliary muscles in his power armor and struck the trooper square in the nose. The force of the blow—coupled with the small metal spikes on Hoffman’s knuckles—collapsed the trooper’s face and sent him flying back into a munitions cart. The trooper arced back and crumpled to the floor.
The magazine was rows and rows of wire-frame lockers with dead servo arms hanging from the ceiling. Re-supply was automated wherever possible, with war fighters requisitioning their loadouts from ships’ stores and having it delivered to their armories right away. Even so, the ship was designed for all tasks to be done manually, a holdover from the Ember War when the Xaros drones could hack in to any system they could connect to.
“Rex?” another trooper called out from between rows of lockers.
Hoffman brought his gauss rifle up and fired on a moving shadow. His bullets tore through the lockers, sparking on the metal. The
trooper shook as bullets hit him and he sank to the ground.
“Down!” Hoffman jerked Ely forward and threw him to the deck. Hoffman ran toward the cart laden with open boxes and slid forward as a pair of troopers raced out from a row. Hoffman fired up and hit one under the chin. The bullet exited out the top of the trooper’s helmet and blood splattered against a robot arm.
The other trooper shoulder-checked his dead-on-his-feet companion and sent the body crashing onto Hoffman, throwing off the aim of his next shot that ricocheted off the now bloody robot and whacked into a case of high-caliber gauss shells. The heavy corpse flattened across Hoffman’s midsection, pinning him in place.
The trooper stomped at Hoffman’s head, but the Strike Marine jinked aside a split second too soon. The side of the boot scraped against Hoffman’s ear and he cried out in pain. The trooper kicked Hoffman’s rifle out of his hand then came down with a blow that would pulverize Hoffman’s skull.
Hoffman punched up at the trooper’s fist, and his Ka-Bar blade snapped out of the housing. The blade impaled the trooper’s blow, and the tip buried itself deep into the meat of the trooper’s arm. He howled, then screamed even louder when Hoffman wrenched the blade out of his arm, nearly splitting the forearm in two.
He tried to turn away, but Hoffman slashed the Ka-Bar across the thin armor on the back of the trooper’s knee and drew blood again. The trooper fell against a locker, his one good hand gripping the spaces between the wire frame.
Hoffman kicked the body off him then finished off the wounded trooper with a stab to the base of his skull. Hoffman stood over the body, breathing hard. He slapped the flat of his blade to knock blood off, then snapped it back into the housing.
“Ely?” Hoffman called out.
“Over there.” Ely raised an arm and pointed at what looked like three oven doors. One was up on hinges, flush against the bulkhead, rollers on each side of the interior. “Straight to armory omega.”
Hoffman went to the cart and snapped open the ammo boxes. He picked out a pair of cylinders with red edges.
“What’re those?” Ely asked as he got to his feet.
“Mark 20s. I don’t have a launcher, but they’ll work if you treat them just right.” Hoffman stuffed more into a pouch on his belt. He slapped Ely on the shoulder and pointed to the open dumbwaiter. Then he shut the magazine door and crushed the controls with one kick.
Ely went to the dumbwaiter and looked into the deep darkness, seeing a faint point of light at the end.
“Daylight’s burning.” Hoffman locked his rifle onto his back and looked down the shaft.
“Maybe this wasn’t the best idea,” Ely said. “Doing a slide in a lift shaft is one thing. This looks like—”
“Your dad ever tell you what happens during a void-borne drop when a Pathfinder refuses to jump?”
“No. Why?”
“Goes something like this.” Hoffman grabbed Ely by the collar and the belt and tossed him into the shaft like he was loading an old-fashioned artillery piece. Hoffman climbed in and went sliding down a moment later, following Ely’s cry.
****
Ely spat out of the dumbwaiter shaft and crashed into an empty ammo cart. He rolled across the deck and slapped into a safety railing.
“Ow,” Ely said, shaking pain from the arm that took the brunt of the impact and feeling a welt growing on his forehead.
Hoffman landed even harder, his armor plates slapping against the deck until he rolled to a stop on his back next to Ely.
“I’ve had worse.” Hoffman tried to sit up but fell back. “Just a sec…for the spinnin’.”
“What are we doing here?” Ely pulled himself up with the railing and looked over the side. They were on a catwalk ten feet up, the lower level a mess of hoses and loose tools around a coffin-shaped frame that rose up in front of Ely. The coffin had no front or back, and the sides were several yards deep. Servo arms stuck out from the side like winter branches.
“This isn’t a Strike Marine armory,” Ely said. “This is a cemetery. Where they kept…Armor.” He looked down the catwalk, past a half-dozen empty coffin bays. At the end of the catwalk was a single suit of Armor. The suit had no weapons mounted on it, the knightly helm with blunted antenna dark and deactivated.
The dull white paint on the Armor’s breastplate had a single iron-colored heart on it and a name stenciled above.
Elias.
“What?” Ely looked from Hoffman to the Armor.
“Museum piece from Fort Knox.” Hoffman got up slowly. “Old Man Ibarra had it smuggled up in pieces. Then got a team of techs to put him together…with some nonstandard tech.”
“I don’t understand,” Ely said.
Hoffman limped down the catwalk.
“If we were ever going to retake Earth, we’d need the Crucible,” Hoffman said. “Just one suit of Armor can make a hell of a difference in a fight, especially if the enemy is the ‘crunchy’ type. We’re a hop, skip and a jump from the Crucible from Ceres orbit and that,” he pointed to a jet pack grasped by robot arms next to the suit, “is your hoppy-skippy part. Ibarra must’ve had a direct-action team for that mission that was never activated—the Crusade got pushed back before they could mount a counterattack.”
“Where were they going to get an Armor soldier?” Ely touched the back of his head where the neural-link socket would have gone.
“Like I said, nonst—”
Talons stabbed through the bulkhead between two empty coffins and ripped a hole open. The metal head of a beast with a wolf’s head, two sets of glowing eyes, and writhing tendrils at the base of its skull burst through. Crystalline jaws snapped at Hoffman, but the bite came short as the Breitenfeld’s frame caught against the monster’s shoulder.
A drake.
The Strike Marine reached back, caught Ely by the upper arm, and pushed him toward the Armor. Hoffman fired on the drake as it snapped the ship’s frame and fought its way into the cemetery. Bullets sprang off the drake’s head, but one bullet managed to crack the plating. The drake roared.
It burst into the cemetery and crashed through the catwalk, severing the back support and causing it to give out beneath Hoffman. He slid down and caught a rung of the safety railing, firing one-handed at the drake as it shrank back with each impact.
Hoffman’s gauss rifle clicked empty.
The drake breathed deep and stared at the Strike Marine. Rivulets of neon-blue blood ran down from beneath the plate on its snout and stained the crystal teeth.
The pseudo muscles in Hoffman’s arm gripping the rung tensed.
The drake struck out with two four-taloned paws. Hoffman pulled hard on the rung, the strength lent by his power armor propelling him up the slanted catwalk and next to Ely. The drake’s talons bit deep, embedding into the catwalk and catching.
Hoffman thrust a hand into his pouch and pulled out one of the cylinders. He turned and smashed the fuse assembly on one end against the Armor’s breastplate, then hurled it at the drake.
The device bounced off the drake’s metal scales and clattered to the deck below. The drake tilted its head slightly, like a confused animal, then leaned toward Hoffman and Ely.
The grenade exploded and the drake convulsed in pain.
Hoffman took out another grenade and smashed the trigger against the Armor again. He kicked a leg up and threw it like a baseball against the drake’s neck, then he swung his body across Ely.
The blast wave slapped Ely in the face and bounced the back of his head against a railing. He saw stars…then Hoffman looking at him. He was shouting, but for a few seconds, all Ely could hear was the ringing in his ears.
“You OK?” Hoffman’s voice finally came through.
“I’s…I’s…” Ely tried to speak, but his lips were going numb. A golden lattice appeared around the edge of his vision and he felt like he was floating, even though the cold of the railing was still against his back and neck.
“Med…cine…” Ely tried to shove a hand into his cargo poc
ket, but his fingers wouldn’t work the zipper.
“Got you, kid. I got you.” Hoffman took out the injector, frowned at the ampules, then noticed there was a dose already loaded. He jammed it into the side of Ely’s neck and Ely took a sudden, ragged breath.
“Better?” Hoffman asked.
Ely’s body began twitching and the lattice faded away.
“Ah ah ah ow…” Ely’s chin jerked to one side no matter how hard he tried to stop it. “Little bit.”
Hoffman put the injector back into Ely’s pocket then looked up at the Armor. “OK, this is where it gets a little weird,” the Strike Marine said.
Behind him, the bloody head of the drake rose into the gap in the catwalk. Ely’s eyes went wide and he tried to grunt out a warning.
Hoffman twisted around and the drake raised a claw and swiped at him. Hoffman raised his arms to his head as talons raked across his armor then tore through the railing. The drake slumped down and gave off a death rattle.
Hoffman’s arms went to his side and blood spattered the catwalk.
“Ah…shit…” He fell to his knees with a groan.
“Hoffman!” Ely tried to move, but his body rebelled.
The Strike Marine raised one knee up, then stood slowly. He wobbled slightly, blood running down the side of his leg. He turned around and took small steps to a control deck hanging from the side of the Armor’s coffin by a thick cable. He mashed a thumb against a red button and the coffin came to life with a whirl of machines. Lights within the Armor’s helm flickered on.
Ely clenched his jaw and regained control of himself with a cry. He caught a faltering Hoffman by the waist, the Strike Marine’s blood smearing across Ely’s vac suit.
“What do I do? Tell me!” Ely cried out.
Hoffman lifted a bloody arm from his side. The auxiliary muscle layer had tightened against the gashes across his flank.
“Bleeding’s stopped. Painkillers should kick in…but I ran out of those years ago.” Hoffman put a hand on Ely’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “You’ve got to get out of here.”