by B. V. Larson
Because of this, embedding him in a combat unit as a medic seemed to be a no-brainer, but I had my reservations. I didn’t relish being patched up by my old friend, despite his new stripes and training.
All that said, I still wanted to know what he was thinking about Turov.
“I mean that she broadcast some long speech at the aliens instead of just firing on them,” he explained. “That was a mistake. Maybe they didn’t even know we were hostile. Maybe they weren’t sure where we were in space. We probably had the element of surprise going in, but noooo, she had to go and make a speech and blow all that.”
“You might be right,” I admitted, “but what’s done is done. We have orders. Let’s follow them.”
I cut off his channel and opened my squad chat. “All right, listen up. I want everyone looking sharp when we come through this hatch into the rim. Remember that there’s no pressure in there. Not much in the way of gravity, either. Turn on your magnetics and keep buttoned up. Look around for anything like a breach, and sound off if you see anything.”
We reached the hatch, and I opened it after taking a breath. A whoosh of escaping gas rushed past me like a small storm. There was an airlock, but it wasn’t an efficient one with pumps and pressure-equalizers. All it did was limit the amount of air it farted out when you opened the side that led into vacuum.
We rushed into the airlock and sealed the hatch behind us. The whole squad fit—just barely. Harris’ squad was next in line to go through, and they watched us with grim expressions and tight grips on their weapons. We swung the second, massive hatch open which released a gush of air into the rim between the hulls.
In between the two hulls were the ribs of the ship. These titanium bones ran beyond the limits of our sight, above and below us. Each rib wrapped around the belly of the ship. They were huge, imposing, and curved with the ship’s contours.
“Tactics, vet?” Sargon asked me. “With my belcher, I mean?”
“Use your weapon as you see fit, weaponeer,” I said. “This area is kind of tight—only about ten meters between the hulls with lots of structural girders and the like. We’ll be on patrol, but you never know when you’ll run into a surprise.”
I saw him cranking his weapon aperture to a medium setting. I approved. It’s what I would have done. Widening the muzzle a bit turned his weapon into a shotgun rather than a rifle, but without making it as broad and uncontrollable as a fire hose. I’d spent years as a weaponeer myself, and when I didn’t know what I was going to be aiming at in a tight space, I broadened the scope so I would at least make sure I didn’t miss.
Off toward the stern was another knot of troops. My HUD told me it was the third squad from my platoon. Adjunct Leeson had seen fit to fight with them instead of with me, and that was just fine in my book. Sometimes, an officer in your midst on a patrol mission could be more of a hindrance than a help.
We moved as a squad to the location that Graves had pinpointed on my tactical display. The position was depicted both inside my helmet and on my tapper. When we reached our post, we dispersed taking what cover we could, and latched our clamps and cords onto the girders. Then, we waited.
The waiting was far from peaceful. The ship often vented gases into the rim—blasts of unknown origin that equalized pressure from inside the ship into this no-man’s land in-between the hulls. The ship also lurched and wallowed at random intervals. I knew the pilots were trying to maneuver and avoid danger. I could only hope they were being successful.
“Unit,” Graves said several long minutes later. “We’ve got word from Gold Deck: we’re to expect boarders. Repeat, the hull is being breached in a dozen spots. At first, they clustered their attempts to penetrate near the jacket that encircles the engine core. That was too thick for them, apparently, and they’ve shifted tactics. They’re now attempting entry all over the outer hull looking for the thin spots. It won’t be hard for them to find a weak point.”
A single question was burning in my mind, and I took this opportunity to ask it. “How are they getting in, sir? How can they drill through even a single meter of titanium that fast?”
“They aren’t drilling,” he said. “The word is they’re using concentrated acid. The shielding around the core was dense and full of lead. But the rest of the skin is relatively thin. The acid is eating holes in Minotaur like a hot flame applied to wax.”
Acid? I gave my head a shake. The enemy had an acid that ate metal like nothing? How had they gotten it up here in sufficient quantities? And what were those shiny green egg-things, anyway? Pods full of acid?
There weren’t any answers forthcoming, but we were about to have company. Even as I cradled my rifle and tried to look everywhere at once, Kivi shouted behind me. I craned my neck and levered myself around to see where she was pointing.
“There it is!” I shouted. “We’ve got a breach! Centurion Graves, we’ve got a breach. I see liquid running inside the hull near my position. It looks like the titanium is dissolving into bubbling, smoking mercury.”
“Keep your head straight, McGill,” Graves replied. “We’ve got reported breaches in a half-dozen spots. Hold your position and repel the enemy. Graves out.”
-11-
All our questions about what we were facing answered themselves over the next few minutes.
Because the ship rotated to provide simulated gravity through centrifugal force, we were standing on inside of the outer hull. Melting metal bubbled up under our feet. The enemy burned their way into the ship as we watched, and we soon learned it was best to stand well-clear of any breach we spotted.
When the acid came through, it produced a vapor that looked poisonous. I was glad I had my visor clamped down. If the zone had been fully pressurized and my visor open, the gas might have killed me. It spread quickly due to the low pressure inside the rim, and soon formed a fog that filled the entirety of my visual range.
“If a spot starts to bubble under your feet, get out of the way,” I needlessly instructed my squad. They were already climbing the girders and hanging there like nervous monkeys in trees.
There were two regions bubbling before the first one burst and showered droplets of molten metal everywhere. A few of my troops were in the splash zone.
Curses erupted immediately. Sargon, unfortunately, was one of the troops showered with droplets.
“I caught a few, vet,” he reported. “Bad luck, I guess.”
“Bad luck,” I agreed, eyeing him. His kit was smoking. We were wearing armor that was pretty thick—but not as thick as the ship’s hull. How long could he hold out before it ate through to his flesh?”
“Sargon, I want you to retreat to the airlock,” I said. “Get out of that armor and get a new suit issued by the techs.”
“Vet—I’m good, really,” he said. “I think the effect is dissipating. This armor is layered with polymers, not just metal. Maybe the acid can’t—”
That was as far as he got before the patch of the hull that had turned into a stewing, smoking mess popped completely open. We were well back from it by then, and no one was hit by the splash this time. But that didn’t mean we weren’t in danger.
A dark, greenish shape wriggled through the liquid metal. It was smoking and probably hissing, but we couldn’t hear that through our thick helmets in the near-vacuum.
The shape loomed up until it was taller than a man, and just for a second, I thought I saw something that resembled a misshapen head. Beads of metal ran from it like thick sweat.
A gush of energy was released by our side a fraction of a second later. Sargon had fried it—whatever it was. Fortunately, although these things were able to melt metal and wriggle through a bubbling mass of acid, a bolt of plasma burned them just fine.
The thing shuddered and thrashed, but Sargon kept the trigger down on his belcher for a full second. Converted largely to ash, the invader slumped and stopped moving.
“Holy shit!” Carlos exclaimed. “What the hell was that thing?”
“T
here’s another one!” Kivi shouted. Sargon swung his belcher around, but it had yet to recycle and dissipate the heat-buildup after such a long burn.
We all unloaded our rifles on the second invader. Our new morph-rifles were more powerful than those of light infantry. We’d configured them into their assault-weapon form, increasing their rate of fire. At this range, any loss of accuracy didn’t matter much.
We hammered the second monster with accelerated explosive shells. Again, it demonstrated tremendous vitality by not dying right off. We must have put two hundred pellets into the thing, blasting it apart, before it stopped struggling.
Approaching cautiously, Carlos poked at the mess with his rifle butt.
“Strangest damned critter I ever saw,” I said, keeping my distance in case it wasn’t quite dead.
Carlos squatted next to it. “I just took xenobiology—and this thing is weird,” he announced. “This isn’t a normal creature of meat and bone. It could be some kind of construct. See these strands? They’re cellulose, I’m sure of that much.”
I was impressed not only by Carlos’ newfound knowledge, but also his newfound balls. He’d walked right up to a dangerous monstrosity and poked at it.
Examining the fibrous stuff he was talking about, I nodded.
“Looks like corn silk,” I said. “Burnt corn silk… What kind of an alien is stuffed with that?”
We didn’t have any answers so I reported in that we’d encountered two aliens and killed them before they could fully enter the ship.
“Good work,” Graves said. “But we have a problem. Not all the units were as successful as we were at repelling the boarders. Some have gotten through the secondary hull and are loose inside the ship. We’re being recalled from this zone. I want all three platoons to withdraw back to the hatchways. Retreat by squads, and prepare to enter Blue Deck itself. We’re to search-and-destroy any invaders you find there.”
“Are the bio people under attack, sir?” Leeson asked on our shared unit channel.
“That’s right. The enemy got through somehow. There are reported fatalities on Blue Deck. Our revival machines might be their target. This unit is to join the rest of our cohort and defend the revival machines at any cost. Graves out.”
After relaying our new instructions and hustling back to the airlock, we piled inside. Everyone was grim-faced, and I could see sweat on their cheeks through their visors.
Facing an unknown enemy in space is difficult. The freaky possibilities work on a man’s mind. The stars have produced countless variations of life, and a legionnaire never knew what form his next murderer might take.
While the two hatches clanged and gasses hissed past us in a gush, I had to wonder which squad had failed to hold the line in the rim zone. Had they been overwhelmed or just unlucky? I was glad it wasn’t my team. So far, we hadn’t suffered a single casualty.
But beneath those thoughts lurked a new worry. The enemy seemed to know what they were doing. They’d tried to get into the engine core first and failed. Now, they were going for Blue Deck. Could they be aware of the strategic value of our revival machines?
If they got through and destroyed our equipment on Blue Deck, every death afterward would be a permanent one until we returned to Earth—if we returned at all. That thought alone was enough to make any legionnaire sweat.
The bio people had always been paranoid about their technology. They were like jealous lovers who’d been cheated on a dozen times. They hid their secrets from everyone—even other members of their own legions.
Accordingly, Blue Deck was a fortress. This region of the ship was all on one horizontal level, but it was more complex than that. It was built in concentric rings, each layer protected by thick walls and hatches that could keep an army at bay.
When we got to the sealed inner region of Blue Deck proper, we were in for a shock. By that time, our entire unit had hooked up into a single force. We jogged down the passages to the main entrance, running in armor that clattered and boots that rang on the deck plates.
The passages were wide here, ten meters across or more. But the hatchways that led into Blue Deck’s inner regions were even more imposing. They were huge, round portals with massive metal hinges and gears that looked like they belonged on a bank vault.
The shock came when we reached the portal itself and saw it had been badly damaged. Sagging down and lying partially on the deck, I thought at first its hinges had been ripped loose by some kind of terrific force—possibly an explosion. But then I saw the hinges themselves and realized that the enemy had made good use of their excreted acids. They’d melted the hinges away and left the hatch lying askew. A pall of gray vapor writhed in the area, and I knew right off I didn’t want to get a lungful of that.
“Squad, double-check your visors,” I ordered.
“Good idea, McGill,” Graves said. “Unit, halt! Secure visors! Harris, take your squad forward and secure that hatchway. Approach with caution.”
Harris gave Graves a single sour glance. His lips were twisted up in an expression of resigned disgust. He wasn’t a man that liked to go into chambers full of unknown aliens—or at least he didn’t like to be the first in line.
Despite his obvious opinion of his orders, he moved his people up gamely enough. Leapfrogging through the hatchway, each trooper took a defensive firing position and waved forward the man behind him. They were inside in seconds, sweeping the area.
“The immediate entrance area is clear, sir,” Harris reported back.
“Press on,” Graves said. “Leeson, get the rest of your platoon in there to back him up.”
Veteran Johnson and I were sent in next. Right about as I stepped over that smoking molten metal and onto Blue Deck proper, I began wishing I hadn’t lost my dragon back on Earth. I’d have much preferred marching through this hatchway inside an armored vehicle with heavy weaponry.
Once inside, Harris broke left, I broke right, and Johnson took his squad directly up the middle toward the next hatchway which led deeper into Blue Deck. Leeson went with Johnson while Graves and the other two platoons hung back at the original hatch.
Graves was playing it safe this time, I noted. Not just safe with his own skin—he’d never cared much about dying—but careful with the lives of his troops in general. I had to figure his caution was due to the fact the revival machines might be out of the game. Each loss could now be a permanent one, and he didn’t want to lose more people because he’d rushed us into a trap.
At first, we found nothing but corpses. Bio people lay on the decks in contorted positions. They were orderlies and specialists, mostly. They were in various states of death all along the gently curving inner passages.
“Looks like they put up a good fight,” I said.
“Veteran McGill?” Kivi called. “Come look at this.”
I trotted to her position, and she showed me a smoking trail gouged in the deck.
“Looks like one of the invaders was wounded and dragged its acid-leaking body this way,” I said. “Ready for action, people! Pop that door open—it’s got to be hiding inside that storage compartment.”
Kivi was the closest, and she didn’t shirk her duty. She stepped up and shouldered the damaged door open.
A pall of vapor swirled out into her face. In the middle of that smoky wreath, an appendage of some kind stretched after her.
“Shit!” she shouted, backpedalling.
Now, I’m not a squeamish man, but this reaching limb made my hair stand on end. The alien appendage looked like a brownish-gray claw with hard black nodules all over it. But that wasn’t the strangest part. What really got me was how long it was. That limb had to be longer than any man’s arm I’d ever seen. It just kept reaching and reaching, as if it was telescoping somehow after Kivi.
She backed over a dead body and went sprawling. Sitting on her butt, she got her rifle up and sprayed fire at the approaching horror. The monstrous limb terminated in a spray of seven grasping fingers, each of which were as thick as
Winslade’s wrist.
Orange fire burst from the muzzle of her gun, and she was joined by several other troops who were close enough to help.
The monster shuddered but didn’t stop coming. Pieces of it flew off, snapping and splintering. The flesh was white inside, kind of like wood, but there was too much liquid flowing out for it to be real wood. Slippery thick fluid splattered all over Kivi and the other soldiers who’d rushed near.
“Use your force-blades!” I shouted. “Bullets are just pissing it off!”
The truth was worse than that. Kivi’s armor was already smoking. Her visor was pitted and gray—it had been splashed with acid.
Still, she and the others managed to get their blades turned on, and they slashed off the grasping alien limb. It fell onto the deck and dripped and smoked—but it didn’t squirm around. It was dead once disconnected from the rest of the monster.
I realized at that moment that’s what this thing was: my first honest-to-God monster. I’d seen more than my share of aliens, but these things—they were different. They weren’t right. There was no earthly equivalent that I could compare it to.
We tore the monster apart, blasting it with bullets and hacking off its limbs. I ordered Sargon to hold back with his heavy weapon. There wasn’t room for a safe, direct blast. I could only imagine what would happen if this thing unloaded all its acid at once in our direction.
At the last moment, before it died, it surged toward us. Dragging itself out of the doorway into the passage with a wild heave of its limbs, it made a clacking sound and threw itself into our midst.
Kivi was its goal. I could see that right off. She tried to get away, and I felt a pang. I shouldn’t have let her sit there and fire at the thing that had attacked her. I should have had someone pull her to her feet and drag her out.
Grimly determined, the monster hugged her and sort of squatted over her. Prongs of some kind stabbed and scrabbled on her armor while she struggled and cried out.