Derelict: Tomb (Derelict Saga Book 2)

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Okay,” Kalimura said, “same positions as before. Carb, get the rear.”

  “Aye, Boss,” she said, her voice tight and clipped.

  He’d heard that voice before. Carb was in the zone. Despite the effects of the concussion and the exhaustion they’d all felt in the shuttle, their adrenal glands were pumping now and every movement seemed sharper, every thought a little clearer. He knew it wouldn’t last long; the trip into Mira, the hunt for O2, and the sense of dread that seemed to pervade everything had already taxed their bodies. Now all they could hope for was another respite, and soon.

  The suit’s nutrient packs would start letting loose electrolytes, protein, and carbohydrates to keep them going. But what they needed most was sleep. Unless they found a hidey-hole they could easily defend, the squad would have to watch every corner, every entryway, every possible flank until they somehow managed to get off this ship. A wave of exhaustion hit him, but departed just as quickly. Thank you, nannies, he said to himself.

  Kalimura stepped forward into the loading/cargo bay from the shuttle bay. Dickerson hung back, waiting for her to get two meters ahead of him, and then followed, Elliott still draped over his shoulder. He didn’t bother checking his rear cam; he knew Carbonaro would wait until he moved far enough inside the cargo bay before beginning her forward progress.

  “Boss? I’m putting down a claymore,” Carbonaro said.

  “Do it,” Kalimura responded. “As soon as we make sure we don’t need to GTFO and back to the shuttle bay, disable it.”

  “Aye, Boss.”

  Dickerson brought up his rear cam. Carb pulled a device, a mere 10cm in diameter, from her belt and placed it on the deck. Although he couldn’t see them, he knew the claymore’s laser motion detector sensors were active. If anything so much as moved in a 180° arc near the door, the device would target the object and detonate. The mine contained enough flechettes to take out a tightly packed squad, let alone a single combatant threatening their rear. He just hoped a floating body wouldn’t set it off.

  He killed the rear cam view and continued looking ahead. His HUD lit up with feeds from the suit’s side cameras, letting him keep tabs on their right and left flanks. With a thought, his block grabbed Kalimura’s helmet cam feed and placed it in the upper right of his vision. Now he could finally see ahead of him.

  *****

  Kali was glad she muted her mic. Dickerson and Carbonaro couldn’t hear her deep intakes of breath, the near panicked exhalations, or the shivers of fear wracking her body. Every step forward took a force of will she didn’t know she had. And the only thing keeping her moving was the hope they could somehow save Elliott’s life.

  According to the schematics Black had sent her, the cargo/loading bay stretched for more than two-hundred meters. Its width? Another two-hundred meters. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was also seventy-five meters tall. If Mira had artificial gravity, they’d only have to worry about the combined 40,000 square meters of area. But since the entire ship was in z-g, attacks or hazards could be anywhere in the 3 million m3 hold. With the combined lights of the three marines, she could still only see five to ten meters in front of her. She’d never been so afraid in her life.

  The only good news was they were headed for an autodoc. According to the schematics, there were two trauma stations located on either end of the bay. Each trauma station also had an O2 refill station and an emergency generator to run both. If her squad was lucky, very lucky, they were still functional. But she wasn’t hopeful.

  Focused on the narrowly illuminated cone ahead of her, she nearly screamed when something moved at the edge of her peripheral vision. She reactivated her mic. “Halt,” she said and held up a fist. Without sound, it was impossible to know if Dickerson had actually stopped behind her. When he didn’t bash into her, she knew he’d at least heard her over the comms.

  She slowly turned her head, the cone of light following her, to gaze at the shadow. The white light caught two objects moving toward them. She waited, her flechette rifle pointed in their direction, finger tight on the trigger. One breath. Two breaths. Three.

  The objects finally floated directly into the light. Kali’s wide eyes instantly recognized them--pinecones. And they were floating toward her. At first, she thought maybe her HUD had developed a serious fault because the pair seemed to vibrate and shake across their exterior. Then they opened.

  A shiny claw slid from the end of the closest pinecone. Her mouth opened in a crazed shriek that rattled inside her helmet. The middle to top portion of the first pinecone extended revealing a circle of waving polyps.

  “What the fuck is that?” Dickerson yelled into the comms.

  Kalimura couldn’t find her voice. Everything seemed to have shut down. She was frozen, watching as the thing closed to 2 meters, its waving tendrils seeming to welcome her.

  “FUCKING SHOOT, MARINE!” Dickerson yelled.

  She felt a snap in her mind. The sound of his drill instructor-like voice smashed through the fear and indecision. Her finger pulled the trigger.

  The rifle vibrated, but didn’t buck, as a magnetic field pushed the round from the barrel. The oblong, Atmo-steel round traveled three centimeters before its rocket propellant came to life. With such a short distance, the flechette round didn’t even have time to explode before slamming into the creature at nearly 50m/s.

  The pinecone thing disappeared from the light and back into the darkness. Its twin, fully extended revealing its hideous body and appendages, undulated in the vacuum and propelled itself at Dickerson. Kali turned with it, her mind on autopilot. She quickly snap aimed and fired another round.

  The first flechette round went wide, but the creature flipped itself and tried to undulate away. Dickerson had fired his pistol, his round going wide as well. As Kali tried to make a kill shot, a round smashed into the remaining attacker and whisked it away into the darkness.

  “Got it, Boss!” Carb yelled.

  “What the fuck is this shit?” Dickerson cried.

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Kali said. They had to move. Now. “Disengage mags. We’re flying. Carb? Watch our six like a motherfucking sensor. Dickerson? Stay close.”

  She bent her knees, killed the mag-boots, and pushed upward. She rose into the air a few centimeters before activating her suit jets. Walking would be too slow. There could be thousands of those things in here. They had to get out. Now.

  Kali’s heart thumped loud enough in her chest to make her ears pound. She switched to a tactical HUD and activated the motion sensors. Her helmet cast a net of micro laser bursts. Anything that moved into the net would immediately appear as a target on her HUD. She hoped Carb had done the same.

  The cam feed from the back of the helmet showed Dickerson less than a meter behind her, Elliott still hanging over his shoulder. Her brief glance also showed Carbonaro jetting behind them. Kali increased her speed. They had forty meters of distance before they reached the pressure door leading into the foredecks.

  She accelerated to one meter per second. Any faster and she risked running into something before having a chance to slow. Even worse, she might find herself in a group of those things before she had a chance to stop. Her HUD lit with a target off to her left six meters away. Kali ignored it. For now. If it came closer she’d blast it. “Dickerson? Do you--?”

  “I see it, Corporal,” he said, cutting off her words.

  “Carb?”

  “Got at least three targets behind me. And the claymore went off.”

  “Fuck,” Kali muttered. The seconds passed like years, the remaining meters clicking down with absurd slowness. She glanced upward and the targeting net showed another five objects within its range. “Above and in front!”

  “I see them,” Dickerson said. “Got more above me too.”

  Kali’s HUD flashed yellow as someone fired their weapon. It was Carb. “We need to get out of here!” Carb yelled.

  “Did you get it?”

  “Aye, Boss. But there’s to
o many to count behind it.

  “What the hell are they attracted to?” Dickerson asked.

  “Worry about that later,” Kali yelled. “Just follow real fucking close!” Twenty. Nineteen. She couldn’t see the seventy-five-meter-tall wall, but she knew it was there. Tantalizingly close. A large pressure door separated the cargo bay from the foredecks. As the distance ratcheted off, she wondered how the hell she’d have time to charge it up and open it. Fifteen meters to go.

  “Carb! Cover Dickerson. I’m going for the door.”

  “Aye, Boss.”

  “Corporal? Are you nuts?”

  Good question, she thought to herself and hit her jets. She doubled her speed through the darkness, watching the distance calculator count off. Her laser intrusion net flashed with multiple targets, above her and on her flanks. Between her and the door, her HUD marked over a dozen targets moving through the black. Kali’s teeth clicked together as she realized she was heading straight into a cluster of the creatures.

  Shrieking inside her helmet, she hit her attitude thrusters in sequence, flattened herself into a horizontal missile, and began to roll her body. The mini-swarm of pinecones bounced off her helmet, her flanks, and her back. With each impact, she imagined the claw appendage ripping at her suit, trying to find a way in. Would one of them cling to her, slowly chewing away until it pierced the armor and welcomed vacuum into her suit? The second it took to get through the swarm seemed like minutes. And then she was through and heading to the bulkhead at a suicidal rate of speed.

  “Swarm coming!” she yelled breathlessly into the comms. Dickerson might have responded. Carbonaro might have too, but she was too focused on slowing her speed before she pancaked into the thick pressure door. Another sequence of suit thruster burns and she changed back into a vertical position flying at 2 m/s and ten centimeters above the deck. Kali raised her legs, stretched until her feet pointed in front of her, and put a free hand out to help cushion the blow. A last burst of compressed nitrogen and she cut her speed to 1 m/s before slamming into the pressure door.

  As soon as her feet hit, she bent her knees to take the majority of the force, activated her free hand’s magnetics, and crumpled into the door. Her bones shook with the impact, but the suit’s internal dampeners took the worst of the punishment. Well, that and her knees. Her free hand hit the door and she stuck fast before her body could bounce away from it.

  A single bright lance of pain shot through her skull and she winced. That can’t be good for a concussion, she thought through a confused haze. And then the sound of confusion lit up her comms.

  “Where the hell am I?” a weak, groggy voice asked. “Why can’t I see?”

  “Elliott!” Carbonaro yelled. “Shut up and hang on!”

  It was Carb’s voice that broke through Kali’s dazed thoughts. She spider crawled using her hands and feet across the door to the side. Suit lights on full, she found the recessed panel and punched it with her free hand. It opened, exposing the same kind of charger she’d used on the shuttle bay door. Elliott continued talking, but she wasn’t listening as she wound the mechanism until the light turned green. She punched the button and the door began to slide open.

  “Get here! Now! Full speed!”

  Carbonaro and Dickerson were screaming over one another’s voices, Elliott’s confused words occasionally breaking through the comm chatter. She flung herself sideways and floated into the doorway. Her suit lights revealed destruction and debris, but the corridor appeared safe. She turned, held her rifle with both hands, and focused.

  Carb and Dickerson were traveling at nearly 2m/s now. Kali’s HUD showed dozens of the pinecones trailing Dickerson. A mini-swarm above Carbonaro had picked up speed and were nearly on Dickerson and Elliott. Kali aimed her rifle, put her finger on the trigger, and waited. If she fired, she might hit Dickerson, Elliott, or Carbonaro. She switched her rifle to stun rounds, and fired at the swarm above Dickerson.

  The round departed the rifle and the rocket engine kicked in. It streaked across the darkness, leaving a trail of yellow light before it hit the swarm. The round detonated in a cloud of blue lightning. The electricity storm began to fade just before the world exploded.

  A brilliant flash of red light overloaded her HUD, blinding her for an instant before compensating. The after image pulsed across her retinas, leaving her vision scarred and surreal.

  “What the fuck was that?” Dickerson yelled.

  Carbonaro’s voice followed closely behind. “They’re coming for you, Dickerson! Watch your left!”

  Kali pointed her suit lights to follow Carb’s warning and her mouth dropped open. The three marines, Elliott still attached to Dickerson’s back, were surrounded. The pinecone things held themselves in swarms of five to a dozen and they were converging from all sides. Except below.

  “Hit the floor!” Kali yelled.

  Carb and Dickerson’s suit lights immediately aimed to the deck as they changed attitude to strafe the floor. She stepped sideways, took a position at the corner of the door, and fired a round at each major swarm. Jagged arms of electric blue flashed out before creating three separate crimson explosions.

  Dickerson didn’t bother slowing. He traveled past Kali and through the doorway, Carbonaro close behind. Just before Carb entered the safe zone, Kali punched the emergency close button. Carb’s feet entered the room just as the door closed.

  Her comms buzzed with pained grunts and Elliott’s barely discernible words. She turned and pointed her lights at their suit outlines in her HUD. Dickerson had crashed into a stack of crates. Carbonaro had slowed herself with a glove and kept herself from ramming the wall at high speed.

  “Status!” Kali yelled.

  “One piece, Boss,” Carb said.

  Dickerson groaned. “I’m alive, but I think I bruised a rib. Elliott?”

  “What,” he breathed, “the fuck is going on?”

  A shaky grin crossed Kali’s face. “Glad to hear your voice, Elliott.”

  “I’m not feeling so good, Corporal,” Elliott wheezed. His voice sounded like he’d swallowed gravel.

  “We’ll take care of that, I promise,” Kali said. “Dickerson? Carb? We need to make sure this area is clear of those things.”

  “Aye, Boss,” Carb said. She immediately broke off and began shining her suit lights on the starboard side of the wide corridor. Dickerson said nothing, but began doing the same on the port side.

  “I’m going to mag-lock you to the wall,” she said to Elliott.

  “Didn’t feel like standing anyway,” he said in return.

  The marine had to know he was dying. His HUD, if it still worked, was no doubt lit up with warnings. She connected her block to the suit using her squad override. The readings from his suit immediately popped up on her HUD. His blood pressure had risen from when they were in the shuttle, but his body was close to going back into shock. In addition, his suit was venting CO2. Whatever damage he’d sustained in the collision with the skiff had not only removed his hand, but obviously broke the recycler. The suit, in turn, vented small amounts of CO2 if they weren’t used for propulsion. His O2 capacity had also been affected. He needed a new suit as well as an autodoc.

  She gently pushed him to the wall beside the pressure door and mag-locked his remaining hand and his left boot. It was awkward looking, but not uncomfortable. If they had to move fast, she could rip him from the wall and place him on her shoulder without much effort. She just hoped that wasn’t going to be necessary.

  “My hand is gone,” he said in a flat monotone.

  Kali hesitated. She didn’t want him to panic and send himself back into shock, but she couldn’t exactly lie to him. “Yes. You’ve lost a hand, Elliott.”

  He giggled and then started to cough. “Guess I’ll be charging the SFMC for a new one,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Kali said. She turned from him and scanned a five-meter arc around the area. Apart from the occasional piece of metal debris, the pinecones were completely absent. “Dick
erson. Status?”

  “All clear, Corporal,” he drawled. He was trying to keep the pain from his voice, but it wasn’t working.

  “Clear here too, Boss.” Carbonaro, more than ten meters away now, finally turned, her suit lights providing more illumination of the wall. “There are some markings on the wall. Looks like we’re on the penultimate level of the foredecks.”

  “Penultimate?” Dickerson asked. “Didn’t know you knew any words with that many syllables.”

  Carb giggled. “Fuck you, Dickerson.”

  “That said,” Dickerson said, “what’s next?”

  Kali disconnected from Elliott’s suit and brought up the schematics. The cargo bay had two autodocs, but she wasn’t going back in there without serious weaponry and support. At this point, they were effectively cut off from the mid and aft decks. That could be a major problem. The nearest autodoc was a mere ten meters away from their position, but it would be impossible to get there without going through swarms of the pinecones. And as far as she knew, that was certain death.

  She found what she was looking for and smiled to herself. Kali moved her head and shined the light upward at the ceiling four meters above her. The metal looked intact. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about falling through on this level. Thank you, Black, she thought.

  “Squad: I’m sending you new schematics I received from Black.”

  “Black?” Elliott said. “You mean Gunny and Taulbee are coming for us?”

  Both Dickerson and Carb turned from their stations to look at her. Bathed in the bright suit lights, Kali suddenly felt as though she were on a stage.

  “No, they’re not,” she said. “Not yet.”

  “What did Black say?” Dickerson asked.

  “It’s complicated,” Kali said. “We can’t talk directly to the Command Crew, although they are aware of our location. An incoming KBO might hit Mira and so Gunny and Taulbee are attaching tow lines to get this bitch moving out of harm’s way. For right now, we’re on our own.”

  No one said a word. Not for the first time, she was glad the marines couldn’t see her face. They didn’t need to know just how frustrated and terrified she was. Hell, no one did.