by Mark Wandrey
“Maki all right,” Southard confirmed, and they had an all too vivid look at a Maki’s furry body distended and contorted from exposure to vacuum, its eyes wide in death. Now they knew another law of physics that applied here. “But what caused that damage to the ship?”
“Nothing friendly,” Johansson concluded. “Does the damage affect engineering?”
“I don’t have a lot of information on that type of ship,” Bonnie said, “but the damage is pretty far forward. A battleship should have multiple reserve tanks of F11.”
“We’re approaching our minimum fuel,” Southard said. “We’ll have to return soon.”
“Okay,” Jones said. “Southard, see if you can find access to the engineering section.” The pilot only grunted in response.
The shuttle took a course around the rear of the ship where they found a standard airlock. It only took a minute to match and dock.
“No response from the battleship’s docking mechanism,” Southard said. “Initiating external dock. Better button up, I don’t know if there is any atmosphere in there.” The CASPer-suited marines were already air tight; the engineer slid her visor closed.
“We’re ready,” the sergeant said, and there was a clang followed by the shuttle’s interior door swinging inward to reveal the other ship’s lock door. As the most qualified, Bonnie unbuckled and moved over to examine the door.
“Atmosphere?” Jones asked.
“No,” she said, “it’s in vacuum.”
“That makes it easier,” he said, “open her up.”
She nodded, opened the access panel set next to the lock, and removed a crank stored there. “Depressurize the hold,” she told the pilot.
“Roger that,” he said, and the door separating the cockpit from the hold slid closed. Atmosphere was pumped out as the suited marines each picked up one of the F11 tanks.
“Alvarado take point,” Sgt. Jones said. “Ms. Cole, please follow behind Alvarado with Johansson and myself. Culper, take the rear.” The pressure equalized, and the engineer used the crank to slowly pump the door open.
“We’re in,” Jones told the pilot.
“Roger that,” Southard said, “I’m closing the cockpit shutters. Oh, fuck, my head hurts.” The boarding party moved into the ship and left Southard to nurse his abused brain.
* * * * *
Chapter 42
Progress down the companionway was slow because the ship was made to Maki proportions. The furry arboreal mammals were half the size of Humans, so the CASPers were behemoths in comparison.
At the first connecting corridor, the engineer used her diagnostic slate on a control panel to see if anything worked. To her surprise, the ship’s computer and communications system was still functioning.
“Does that mean there are survivors?” Sgt. Jones asked.
“No way of telling,” she said. “I can try and hack the computer, but that would take a while, with no guarantees of success.”
“No,” Jones said; “just get us to the F11 storage.” She nodded her helmeted head and worked on the access panel. The layout of the ship was located and downloaded.
“This way,” she said, pointing.
Alvarado pulled himself down the corridor. “I hope we don’t get hit here,” the point marine said. “I feel like I’m crawling down a mole hole.” Rick and his team hadn’t used the crew access corridor on the other battleship they’d boarded; they’d stuck to the larger service ways which were used to move equipment.
The data proved accurate. They reached a huge blast door, which stood open, and on the other side was the expansive open spaces of one of the ship’s engine rooms. Rick nodded; it looked like the one he’d been in before.
“Score!” the engineer said. It was a long way across the space to where she pointed. “Take forever to crawl along the walls.”
“Not necessary,” Alvarado said. He gripped her armor and launched with his jumpjets.
“Shiiiit!” she squealed as they soared. Rick had to grin; Alvarado had obviously done that on purpose. After Bonnie’s crack about handling a CASPer, it was expected.
A moment later, the team was boosting across the open spaces of engineering with puffs of their jumpjets. It was strange, not having to flip over and reverse.
Their destination was a series of armored tanks arrayed next to one of the massive fusion reactors. The engineer shot Alvarado a dirty look once they landed, then began examining the connections and piping.
“This will take a few minutes,” she said as she took out her slate and started taking images for translation.
“Understood,” Jones said. “Everyone keep an eye out,” he told the other marines.
Rick used his jets to fly over to a platform full of displays and acceleration couches. A work area, he guessed. He examined some of the controls and thought they indicated the reactor was in shutdown mode. The workstation seemed orderly, with no signs of anything amiss. It was as if the crew had shut down the reactor and left. No flashing lights or alarms were going off.
“Everything seems too calm,” he said over the squad net. “If they ended up here the way we did, you’d think they would have tried everything to get out.”
“Too much to assume,” the sergeant said. “Stay alert.”
Time passed and eventually the engineer figured out the system. She inserted a connector and used her instruments to test the tanks.
“They’re full!” she exclaimed. “Pure, unused F11. Hundreds of gallons.”
“Fill ‘er up!” Alvarado said, removing the tank from his suit and letting it float next to her. Everyone else flew over and four tanks were set near the engineer. She used a flexible line she’d brought and connected the first one.
“How long?” the sergeant asked.
“The system is pressurized, so I don’t have to use the portable pump I brought. Say five minutes per tank?”
“We only need one, right?” the sergeant asked.
“Redundancy,” she replied.
“Yeah, and money,” Johansson pointed out. “That stuff is 10,000 credits a gallon!” Rick looked at the four containers they’d brought. Half a million credits each when full. He let out a long slow whistle. “No sign of the locals,” she told the sergeant, “I think we can afford an extra 15 minutes.”
“Fine,” he said. They could tell by the sound of his voice he liked the idea. “Do it.” As a salvage party, they’d each get a percentage of the value. The precious gas was transferred. As they were filling the last tank, the sergeant called the shuttle. The sergeant accessed their other channel. “Shuttle, status check?”
“Trying to get rid of this skull-bursting headache,” Southard replied. “Jesus, this place is a living hell.”
“You can’t shutter?”
“I have to keep opening up. Can’t rely on the sensors,” he said. Then there was a loud thump clearly transmitted over the radio. “Wait one.”
“Shuttle, what was that?” Jones demanded.
“Something hit the hull,” Southard said. “It was back by the cargo bay. Probably drifting debris.” Rick was about to remind him that nothing drifted in this strange place when Southard suddenly spoke up. “Shit, something is on the hull! I can hear it moving!”
“Detach,” the sergeant ordered, “Get clear, you can pick us up at another lock.”
“Roger, beginning undocking-” he stopped and there was a sharp intake of breath. “It’s on the window,” he whispered. “Oh, oh god…it looks like a-” There was an explosive crash and a scream, followed by a hurricane sound. In a second, the channel was quiet.
“Southard!” Jones yelled. “Southard, report!”
“Well, hell,” Alvarado said, summing it up. “There went our ride.”
* * * * *
Chapter 43
“There is movement,” Flipper said and pointed to the big Tri-V display. Alexis looked up from the engineering report to the indicated display. Even though they’d lost contact with the shuttle shortly after it dep
arted, they’ been able to watch its progress through a rather-delayed sensor picture. For the last half hour, the shuttle had been as far away as they could track.
The greatly hampered ship’s sensors had picked up a signal near the ship the shuttle was investigating. She watched a little radar return that was past the derelict ship steadily moving toward it.
“Any idea what that is?” Alexis asked.
“No clue,” the Selroth said. “It’s not very big though. Probably smaller than a frigate.”
“
“Are you sure?” Alexis asked.
“
“Engineering, this is the captain.”
“Go ahead, Captain,” Long replied.
“Can you give me propulsion?”
“Without a fully functional fusion reactor?”
“Yes.” There was a slight pause.
“The maneuvering ion drive,” he finally said. “But not too much or too long. If we lose another buffer before we start the other reactor…”
“Understood, give us what you can. Chug, set course for the shuttle’s last location. Best speed engineering can give us.”
Pegasus rotated on her maneuvering jets, too slowly and not far enough. Chug burbled and cursed, and maneuvered again, finally bringing them onto course. The modest thrust of the ion drive engaged and began to move them toward the distant ship.
* * *
The last tank was detached, full of F11. The only problem was getting back to the Pegasus. Each of the CASPer-suited troopers secured a tank to their back, ready to go.
“What’s the plan, Sarge?” Johansson asked.
“There have to be shuttles on this ship, right?” He looked at the engineer who thought for a moment then nodded. “So, lead us to their hangar deck, and we’ll steal one.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Johansson agreed. The engineer consulted the downloaded deck plans on her slate.
“We can use this main maintenance corridor,” she said, pointing to a huge exit. Sergeant Jones approved, and they moved out.
With their objective in hand, the team proceeded as quickly as they could. They fairly flew down the much larger corridor, learning to move in leaps because of the strange drag. Engineer Cole was riding on the back of Alvarado’s suit because she couldn’t keep up.
“Another four cross passages,” Cole said, hanging desperately onto Alvarado.
“Their shuttles are pretty nice,” Rick commented.
“That one we stole sure did the job,” Alvarado agreed. “We’re starting a collec—” Alvarado’s CASPer exploded. It was so sudden, he didn’t even have time to scream.
Whatever hit him nearly tore the suit in half. The kinetic energy blew Cole off the back of the suit where she spun once and came to a sudden, stunned stop a few feet away in the middle of the corridor.
“Heads up!” Jones yelled, grabbing ahold of the wall and lowering his shoulder-mounted laser.
“What the fuck did that?” Johansson barked. Blood, gore, and chunks of armor were scattered all over the intersection; the view in the direction of the attack was like looking through a charnel house window. Rick reached out and snatched Cole by the leg, pulling her to the side as an energy beam passed through where she’d been. The beam looked like a laser, but it crackled like a particle accelerator. That was impossible—there were no portable particle accelerators! Particle accelerators were ship-based weapons because of their massive power draw.
Both Jones and Johansson’s heavy lasers sent beams down the hall past their dead companion. Rick, guarding the engineer, tried to convince his unreliable sensors to tell him what they were facing. He got a thermal outline of something hot. It looked insectile, with six limbs, and was twice the size of a CASPer. He saw the red line of a laser beam hit and do absolutely nothing. No flash, no reflection, no shield absorption, nothing.
“We better run,” he suggested as another beam flashed by, barely missing him.
“Good call!” Jones said. “Go!” He fired several more times as Rick took the still-stunned engineer and went back the way they’d come.
“Get out of this corridor!” Johansson said, turning and firing her jumpjets. Jones fired once more and began to turn but never finished. An energy bolt blew him and his suit to bits.
“Fuck!” Johansson cried as she pushed her jets to catch up to Rick.
The next cross corridor loomed, and Rick cut his jets. The crazy drag effect brought him quickly to a stop, allowing him to grab a handhold and turn the corner. A beam lanced past his suit. As he pulled the engineer around the corner, he realized he was only holding a bloody arm.
“Fuck,” he said, tossing it aside. Another beam crackled past the intersection, and he was afraid the sergeant had been hit, but an instant later, she careened into the intersection without even slowing. The CASPer crushed the metal of the corridor wall, and she scrambled clear of the cross corridor.
“Move, move, move!” Johansson yelled. “Where’s Cole?”
“Gone,” Rick said. Rick took a second to remove a string of K-bombs. The powerful grenades were designed to work in sequence, if you had time. He didn’t have much, so he thumbed three to “Gang Fire” mode and pushed them against the wall.
“Fucking hurry,” Johansson said.
“I am!” Rick snatched a multi-function detonator, spun it to ‘proximity – 5 seconds’, and thumbed the ‘link’ button. The green light on the detonator turned red and flashed, and the three grenades flashed in unison. Rick let the detonator hover in the center of the side corridor. “Where to?” he asked the corporal.
“Away from that damn thing.” she said, and they pushed away a dozen yards before firing jumpjets.
“What is it?” Rick asked. Johansson was panting, trying to catch her breath. “Did you see it?”
“It looks like a robot,” she said, “or a CASPer for something as big as a Tortantula! Whatever it is, I don’t want to be near it.” They turned another corridor and Rick’s ordinance interface control flashed red. The booby trap he’d left behind went off. He hoped it had done something, but didn’t have a lot of faith. Anything that could ignore half a megawatt of tightly-focused laser energy might not be impressed with high explosives, either.
They raced down a series of corridors in full flight. Rick saw his jumpjet fuel falling at a precipitous rate and found that he cared. Was it fear he was feeling? In his mind’s eye, he kept seeing Alvarado explode. Who had portable weapons that powerful? His mouth was dry, and he couldn’t swallow. He didn’t know where they were going and didn’t really care.
And then they were at the end. The corridor stopped at a hatchway which looked like the lock they’d come through originally. Remembering how the engineer operated the lock, Rick jerked open the access panel and spun the spindle with his powered suit fingers, not needing the handle. The lock started to creep open.
“Is there a ship out there?” Johansson asked.
“No clue,” Rick said. “Don’t care.”
“Yeah,” she agreed as the door crept open. Johansson had her back to the door as Rick worked, her heavy laser rifle pointed down the corridor the way they’d come, the light mini-gun also aimed. It took an eternity of cranking to make it wide enough to slip through, and another eternity for Rick to close it from the inside. The lock was crowded with the two huge CASPers inside, and all the time he worked the spindle, he kept expecting to take an energy beam to the head.
The inside door closed, and to his surprise the outer one swung open automatically, completely catching them by surprise.
“Look out!” Johansson yelled, and spun toward the opening door.
* * *
“Range down to under a light second,” Chug said.
“Movement on the target,” Glick warned. On the status board, another object had separated from the derelict and was moving toward them. They’d finally identified the ship a few minutes earlier. They were all surprised to find it was a ship they
’d faced before, the Maki battleship Ardent Grove.
“What do we have, Flipper?” Alexis asked.
“Small target,” he said. “Shuttle size.”
“Ours?” Edwards asked, bringing his weapons alive. The small man had a scowl on his face, knowing the lack of fusion power meant he had very little offensive capabilities and almost no defensive.
“I don’t think so,” Flipper said.
“Any sign of that frigate sized target?” Alexis asked. They’d watch it come up to and merge with the derelict, increasing her anxiety for the boarding teams.
“Nothing yet,” Flipper said. “That shuttle-sized target is making directly for us.”
“TacCom, target that shuttle,” Alexis said, “but hold your fire until ordered.”
“Forward laser batteries are charged, I have one shot each,” Edwards said. Eight shots, Alexis thought. That wasn’t much. Flipper focused on the approaching shutter with a telescope, and they looked at it through filtered images. The craft wasn’t theirs; that much was obvious. It looked more like a huge manta ray than a spacecraft.
“I’ve never seen a ship like that,” Paka said.
“Me neither,” Alexis agreed. “Stand by, Edwards.” The TacCom nodded, his weapons armed and aimed. Only moments before Alexis was going to let him go hot, the strange looking shuttle did the unexpected. It slewed from side to side. “Is that a wing waggle?” It did it again.
“Sure seems that way,” Chug said. Alexis laughed and shook her head. “It appears our boarding team acquired another vehicle. Inform the hangar deck to prepare for arrival.”