Derelict: Tomb (Derelict Saga Book 2)

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Area of interest?” He shook his head. “Black? Stop fucking around and just tell me what they are.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Black said. “Those clusters of dots are new entries into the Kuiper Belt. New arrivals. They appear to have followed Mira’s trajectory into Sol System.”

  “Okay, so a few ice balls hitched a ride in her wake?”

  “Unknown,” Black said. “However, they are not ‘ice balls.’”

  “Then what are they?” Oakes asked.

  “Unknown. However,” Black said, “they are emanating low-level X-ray signatures similar to those coming from Mira.”

  “What?” Oakes leaned forward, suddenly alert. The fatigue of staring at the displays, fiddling with settings, and the endless frustration departed in an instant. “How is that possible?”

  “Unknown,” Black said. “Mickey and Dr. Reed had no theories to offer.”

  “Great,” Oakes said. He rubbed his hands together. “Wait a second,” he said. “Mira is missing her fusion drives, right?”

  “Correct,” Black said. “Or rather their radioactive material. And possibly the engine components themselves.”

  “Well, whatever pushed Mira into Sol System could have pushed any jettisoned material along with her.”

  “While that is possible,” Black said, “it is highly unlikely. However, I shall add that possibility to my simulations.”

  Oakes grunted. “Are they still moving at the same speed Mira was before we stopped her spin?”

  “Yes,” Black said. “Which means they should be visible to my sensors in the next hour or so.”

  “Great. Keep an eye on them for me,” Oakes said.

  “Aye, Lieutenant,” Black said.

  He smiled at the display. “Thank you, Black.”

  “You’re welcome, Lieutenant.”

  He stood from his chair and stretched. Maybe he’d get a drink, walk off the aches from sitting so long. Objects following Mira? That had to be some kind of astronomical first. He thought of the pinecones congregated on the derelict ship’s hull as well as the acidic substance that had killed Private Niro. Whatever was coming, he hoped it was just debris and not something new.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Mag-walking through the dead, dark corridors was both laborious and terrifying. Every shadow could be an innocuous floating corpse, a pinecone, or perhaps something worse. Coming across the bodies was bad enough. The frozen human remains more often than not consisted of a body mangled by explosive decompression and a mouth locked in a silent, eternal scream of terror.

  Kali continued checking her HUD cams, her eyes flicking to every feed searching for movement. She’d no doubt that Dickerson and Carb were doing the same. Elliott, stuffed into an ill-fitting civilian model, had none of the niceties save a single light tree that spread from his neck area up to his helmet.

  Elliott gripped Carb’s shoulder, his body floating horizontally behind her. Walking point, with Dickerson guarding the rear, Kali’s mind felt as though it was reaching a snapping point. Every corner required her to hold a fist to stop the procession, clear the next hall with her relatively ineffective lights, and hope nothing jumped at them from the darkness a few meters beyond the illumination.

  The entire squad was silent as they moved, no one wanting to reveal just how terrified they were. Of course, for all she knew, Dickerson and Carb were having the time of their lives. But she seriously doubted that.

  They still had plenty of ammunition. They still had working suits. But with the exception of Elliott, each suit had suffered damage bordering on catastrophic. If they weren’t careful, a stray bit of shrapnel, an accidental trip into a ripped piece of metal, or a pinecone could be the final straw. Then they’d be exposed to vacuum and near absolute zero temperatures. That would end this little mission in a hurry.

  The absolute darkness, coupled with the fact they couldn’t hear anything moving in the vacuum, meant every step could be taking them into danger. Every shadow beyond their illumination could be a hazard that would tear their suits to pieces or simply kill them outright.

  Killing us outright, she thought. Why didn’t the pinecones just do that?

  That was a good question. The creatures could have easily overwhelmed any one of the marines. Instead, they headed directly for the autodoc. And once the bubble had exploded, the creature that sliced up Elliott’s arm had done it for purchase rather than an active attack. At least that’s how it looked to her.

  And it hovered above his mouth, she thought. The more he screamed, the lower it seemed to get. What the hell did that mean?

  She turned the thoughts over in her mind, doing her best to keep focused on the task at hand without succumbing to paranoia and fear. If she could figure out what the pinecones had honed in on, she might know how to defeat them. Or better yet, control them.

  The way they floated together in swarms, the way they moved when attacked, as though they somehow knew where the attack would come from, suggested rudimentary intelligence. But how did they see? She hadn’t noticed any eyes or anything resembling them. Did they “see” in some spectrum humans couldn’t detect?

  Interesting question. While clutching the creature, she’d felt it vibrate until it knew it could no longer move. Then it had retracted the claw and become inert just like the ones attached to the hull. Something triggered them. Something they’d done had activated the creatures.

  They might be exo-solar in nature. They might be non-carbon-based lifeforms. But anything considered “alive” had to eat, didn’t it? It had to consume chemicals or change its food into some form of chemical process to power it. Didn’t it?

  In a vacuum, gas atoms could group together until pulled apart by an external force. In space, especially with a temperature near or at absolute zero, the particles, when they collided, could form into discernible clouds. But that didn’t often happen without gravity or some other force to help them attract one another.

  But that didn’t mean the atoms and molecules weren’t there. Most of the ocean on earth was a dead zone now, although some life had returned after humanity realized it had to do something or face an absolute collapse of the biome.

  Kali’s education on Mars had included old holos of extinct mammals and fish that once filled Earth’s oceans. Some whales, extinct since before the Sol Era, consumed microbial lifeforms called plank something. They did so by filtering the water through strainers. What if the pinecones did the same thing with a gas?

  “Dickerson, you, Carb, and Elliott are all from Earth, right?” she said over the squad channel.

  “Aye, Corporal,” Dickerson said. “From the original gravity well.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You still grew up in a dome. Don’t get all high and mighty.”

  “Sorry, Corporal. Didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”

  Kali was a little touched by the remorse in his voice. “Forget it. Just me being overly sensitive.” The channel went quiet as she checked another corner. They were more or less in the middle of the foredecks. The wide corridor broke off into smaller corridors that stretched into darkness. Each junction gave an unseen enemy chances to come at them from both the port and starboard halls.

  “Clear,” she said, and continued walking. “You know anything about plank-something?”

  “Plank-something, Corporal? What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe nothing,” she said. “I just remember some holo about whales and how they ate.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Plankton?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “that’s it.”

  “Another thing they fucked up in the Common Era,” Carb said. “They’re extinct. What about them?”

  “Was thinking about our pinecone friends. They have to eat something.”

  Dickerson whistled. “Yeah, I guess they do. From all the damage to the deck plating, I figured the little fuckers were eating the Atmo-steel.”

  “I don’t think so,” Kali said. “There are hundreds, maybe thousan
ds, of the things on the ship’s surface. And I’m willing to bet the cargo bay has a lot more of them. If they were eating the metal, I doubt there’d be any metal left.”

  “Good point,” Dickerson said. “Okay, so what are you thinking?”

  She shrugged as she crouch-walked further down the corridor, her eyes scanning the darkness. “I don’t think they were attacking us as a food source,” she said. “I think they wanted something we have, though.”

  “Like what?” Carb said. “We’re in a goddamned vacuum. No way they could smell us.”

  “Maybe they can,” Kali said. “Maybe smell is the wrong word, but it’s the same function.”

  Dickerson chuckled. “Corporal? It sounds like you have an idea, so just spit it out already. The suspense is killing me.”

  “What if they’re eating gas?”

  “Gas?” Dickerson said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Yeah,” Carb said. “Unless they like the smell of Dickerson’s farts, I don’t think we have anything they’d want. They sure as shit didn’t want oxygen.”

  “True,” Kali said, ignoring Carb’s sarcasm. “But they seemed to come to life after we pressurized the medical bay.”

  “The cargo bay wasn’t pressurized,” Dickerson said. “But they chased us. Tried to get to--” He stopped mid-sentence. The comms went silent for a moment.

  “Tried to get to what?” Kali asked.

  “To me and Elliott,” he finally said.

  Kali nodded even though she knew they couldn’t see the gesture. “And Elliott’s suit was damaged. He had blood from his missing hand.”

  “I’m still here and listening, Corporal,” Elliott’s gravelly, raspy voice said.

  She winced. “Sorry, Elliott. Didn’t mean to remind--”

  “Forget it,” he said. “I know what you meant. Please continue.”

  “Anyway, the suit was damaged and leaking. It was expelling CO2 to keep the atmosphere clean. Guessing your recycle failed.”

  Dickerson grunted. “How does that explain the autodoc attack?”

  “Its CO2 filters were shot. It too was venting gas particles. Not much, mind you, but maybe enough to attract them.”

  “Corporal, I’m beginning to like you,” Carb said, “but that’s crazy.”

  “Why?” Kali asked. “Plants convert CO2 into oxygen and use the chemical process to stay alive. What’s to say these things don’t do something similar?”

  The group fell silent. She kept seeing the image of the pinecone’s claw stroking the air Elliott expelled in his screams once the bubble broke. If CO2 attracted them, then they might have a way to repel them. Or at least corral them somewhere else in the ship. Too bad Mira was riddled with damage and completely without pressure. Then they could run some--

  Something moved up ahead. Her targeting net went active and three markers appeared on her HUD. “Halt,” she whispered.

  Once again, only Elliott’s raspy breathing filled the comms. She thought about telling him to mute himself, but she wasn’t even certain his model of suit had that option. Not that it mattered; it wasn’t like she could hear the targets moving in a vacuum.

  Kali narrowed her light focus and shined them at the nearest target. The shadows thinned, but were still close-knit enough to obscure most of the object. She did, however, get an idea of its shape.

  “Cover me,” she said. Kali didn’t look at the rear cam to see if Dickerson had followed the order. She knew he would. If something came at her from the side of the hallway, he’d destroy it.

  Kali crouch-walked forward, her rifle pointed directly at the nearest shape. Her lights finally caught enough of it for her to see. Her breath hitched in her lungs when she realized it was a pinecone. But it looked strange. After a moment, the reason it hadn’t looked familiar was obvious. The pinecone was split in half like a potato. As it slowly turned over in the z-g, it looked more and more like a hollowed-out fruit.

  The claw, still razor sharp and utterly alien, protruded from an intact portion of the creature’s bottom. But there were no, well, no guts. Apart from the metallic shell and the claw, it might as well have been an empty seed pod. She slowly turned her head to catch the others in her light. The two other pinecones had suffered the same fate.

  “Clear,” she said.

  “What’d you find, Corporal?” Dickerson asked. “Please tell me it’s a tour guide.”

  She laughed at his ridiculously drawn-out drawl. Seemed as though whenever she was stressed or afraid, Dickerson managed to say something that cleared her mind. It was the only reason she hadn’t bitten his head off for asking questions. “We have three dead pinecones,” she said.

  “Dead?” Carb asked.

  “Dead,” Kali said. “Dickerson. Get up here. I need more light.”

  “Aye, Corporal.”

  She watched him approach through her HUD, the cam on the back of her suit providing the images. Dickerson crouch-walked forward, even though she’d given the all-clear. That was discipline, and probably an artifact of being in environments where the word “clear” was relative, and didn’t necessarily mean you were safe.

  He focused his suit lights on the specimen a half meter from her. “Wow,” he said after whistling. “Is it just me, or does it look like someone cracked it open and sucked out its innards?”

  She turned and stared at his helmet despite the fact his visor was impenetrable. “That’s kind of what I was thinking.”

  “Time to do something stupid,” he said and lifted a mag-glove toward the creature. The hollowed-out pinecone slowly moved to his hand before sticking to the glove.

  “Dammit, Dickerson,” she said. “That was too stupid.”

  “Probably,” he said. He turned the creature’s shell over in his hands, the suit casting a bright halo of light upon the find. The pinecone, nearly a meter long and half a meter wide with its shell split in twain, lay in his hands. In the focused light, the claw looked even more deadly than she’d thought.

  The claw itself wasn’t a single piece. Or if it was, it was made of an impossibly flexible and strong material. The sheath was longer than she’d expected, a full 6cm longer than the claw itself. A ragged bit of something analogous to flesh clung to the end of the sheath. The hexagonal remains of a tube stuck out of the sheath toward the inner body.

  She continued looking past where the tube should have been and slowly the outline of what might have been called “guts” appeared. Kali reached in a finger to touch it. Something knocked her hand sideways at the same time Dickerson’s voice yelled, “No!”

  With her mag-boots locking her to the floor, she leaned heavily against the force of the blow before stabilizing herself, hands flailing the air. “What the fuck, Dickerson?”

  “Sorry, Corporal,” he said, his helmet tipped down to examine the creature.

  She clenched her fists before yelling, “Hey, asshole! I’m not trying to play with your fucking toy!”

  His posture didn’t change. Hell, his body didn’t even flinch. He seemed lost in staring at the thing.

  “Corporal,” he said, “my apologies, but if we’re lucky, very lucky, I might have just saved your life.”

  “That thing is dead,” she said, a pause before each word. “I don’t think it was going to take off my hand.”

  “Oh, it’s dead all right,” he said, the words tumbling out in a deep drawl. “But I know what you were reaching for.”

  “What?”

  He nodded his head. “You saw that outline.”

  “Yes,” she said. The mag-boots kept her from tapping her feet in frustration.

  “It’s glistening like that shit on the hull.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The moment Nobel left the cargo bay, Dunn rotated the lockers until the strange crates were once again up front for inspection. Ten crates. Experimental weapons, parts, and only the Trio back at Trident Station seemed to know exactly what they were for. But that was the wrong question to ask, wasn’t it?

  The
crates were onboard. According to the Trio, they hadn’t been loaded by mistake. Quirinus had purposely put them on the manifest and instructed Kalimura’s squad to place them in the ship’s inventory. That meant the Trio not only knew what the crates held, but that Dunn’s marines would need them.

  “How?” he asked the empty cargo bay. “How did you know?”

  If Black was listening, she kept her own counsel. That was just as well. The AI claimed she was just as much in the dark as he was. And if she wasn’t? Well, there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to make her give it up.

  But those concerns paled when put against the backdrop of the Trio knowing the weapons would be necessary. They were little use against traditional ships or even most human targets. Therefore, they had to have been developed to deal with specific kinds of exo-solar material.

  “Bullshit,” he said. Dunn ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “Exo-solar material is bullshit.” What the Trio had meant all this time was most likely “exo-solar life.” He shivered. The pinecones. The acid that ate Niro. What else had hitched a ride with Mira on her way back to the solar system?

  His heart seemed to stop in mid-beat. “Fuck me,” he said. That was it. The Trio knew what Mira had found on her journey. The Trio somehow had scientific details, maybe even exhaustive research on the “exo-solar material.” And how would they have gotten that?

  Dunn growled. “You bastards knew the entire time. You knew the entire fucking time.”

  Colonel Heyes and SFMC had given Dunn faulty intel based on the public schematics of the ship. Public schematics. In other words, the information in the books, the holos, everything SF Gov had told its citizens about Mira was a lie.

  Mira had a shuttle bay that hadn’t been in the original specs. Mira had a refinery that wasn’t in the original specs. SF Gov had either duped all of humanity, or something else had happened. That “something else” was the most worrisome.

  Humanity’s last hope for new resources departed the solar system 50 years ago. After seven years, she stopped sending reports. But did she? Did she really? What if well after she’d been reported “lost,” SF Gov decided to keep what she’d found a secret. Perhaps the AIs had calculated the chances of the ship and crew’s survival and decided there was no way Mira could possibly succeed. Therefore, SF Gov kept receiving status reports from the ship long after she’d been reported lost; unwilling, or perhaps terrified, to tell the rest of humanity what their last hope had found. Not resources. But extraterrestrial life. Dangerous life.