“No shit,” he grumbled. His back and neck ached from the wrench of the tether halting his momentum. After a moment, he realized he still held the cutting beam in a death grip. The beam still glowed. Cursing, he turned off the power, and shoved it back in his belt. Hands shaking, he pulled the rifle from his back and aimed it at the pinecones
“That’s better,” the AI said. “Your breathing--”
“In the name of all the gods, will you shut up? What do I do about these things?”
If an AI could sigh, he was certain Black was. “I suggest you stay where you are and try not to appear threatening.”
“Right. Threatening.” Nobel shook his head. A twinge of pain flared at his neck. “Tell them that.” The pinecones were off the hull and seemed to be floating toward him. He kept his hands before him and mag-locked his boots to the hull.
Something bumped his back. Nobel froze. The something bumped him again. He brought up the rear camera feed on his HUD and wanted to shriek. Dozens of pinecones had arrived and they all seemed to be converging on him.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mira’s corridors may have been cloaked in darkness, but somehow gliding up the slip-point was worse. Seven decks to fly up. Seven decks to travel while encased in a three-meter cube of absolute night whose walls barely reflected any light at all. There was nowhere to run, no way to juke or maneuver if a hazard presented itself. In essence, she was trapped until she exited.
Kali fought against the fear as she headed upward to the bridge deck. Every 5 meters, she passed another opening leading into unknown corridors populated by either the dead or potentially hostile lifeforms. While passing the first three slip-point exits to other decks, she held her breath, her rifle pointed at the rectangle of black waiting for something to come through and attempt to eat her and her squad.
When her body cleared the opening, she relaxed. Slightly. Dickerson, bringing up the rear, reported each time he passed an exit. She’d felt silly asking him to do it, but it made her feel better to know the rear guard was still flying behind them.
The debris inside the slip-point was sparse. The occasional tool, personal item, or fractured piece of metal floated past them on their way up. She’d only had to use her free hand to push them to the wall twice. Her priority was not only her own safety, but to make sure Carb and Elliott didn’t take any hits. Carb could afford it. Elliott, on the other hand, wore a suit not meant for combat or impacts with stray material. His suit might puncture. And if it did, he was dead.
She’d managed to keep herself from giving voice to those thoughts, but they spun and tumbled through her mind. Kali focused on what was ahead of her all the while hoping there wouldn’t be something waiting for her and the squad in the darkness.
As with the rest of the ship, the strong suit lights penetrated the darkness for a few meters and then seemed to dissolve as if the yawning black of space had swallowed the illumination. Another piece of debris floated by her, this one an ID card. She reached for it with her free hand as it sped by and managed to catch it between her fingers. She stuffed it into her utility pouch without breaking speed or her focus on the darkness ahead of her. It was something she could check later. If it mattered.
Three more levels to go. Three more and they would be on the bridge deck and hopefully find something to boost their comm signals. The hell with the mission; she had to get her squad off this wreck. Connecting to the captain, to Black, hell, to anyone outside Mira was their only chance at survival. Even assuming they found enough thruster fuel to replenish their suits, it was impossible to know where S&R Black was in relation to Mira.
If more shatter storms had entered the area, Dunn would have moved the ship to a safe distance. The same if the stabilization efforts had resulted in more debris. It was certainly what she would have done. Dunn, Taulbee, and Gunny weren’t going to leave her squad behind without a fight. She knew that. But she also knew that the Command Crew would sacrifice her and the others if it meant saving everyone else aboard S&R Black. Although the thought gave her the chills, she also knew it was the right call.
Besides, her squad could be dead in five minutes, let alone five hours. Or five days. That was another thought she didn’t like to entertain, but it wouldn’t leave her mind.
Two levels. Kali’s sense of dread departed. Instead, a sense of hope replaced it. The bridge deck was just above them now. Just have to keep floating, keep moving, and keep the debris away from Elliot.
One level. A manic grin crept across her lips along with excitement. They were nearly there. Just a few more meters.
She hit her thrusters to slow herself. The very end of the slip-point lay directly above her. “We’re here,” she said over the comms, doing her best to hide the joy in her voice. She mag-locked a glove to the wall and slowly turned to face the slip-point exit. The yawning darkness didn’t seem as threatening. She pointed her helmet downward and saw her squad’s suit lights. They’d made it. All of them.
“Dickerson. Keep checking our six. I’m going to clear the front of the corridor before I bring you up. Understood?” The affirmatives sounded less grim than she’d expected. Maybe the excitement was catching. Or maybe they were just too tired to care anymore. If she didn’t find a way out of here for them in the next hour or so, even she might give up.
Kali broke the magnetic field and pushed off the wall and to the slip-point’s exit. Once through the threshold, she turned the mag-boots on and stuck fast to the deck. “Back to mag-walking,” she said to no one. Her feet hurt. She didn’t realize just how much until they began their ascent from the lower decks. While floating through the cramped and claustrophobically tight slip-point, without the stress and pressure of mag-walking, her feet stopped hurting. Maybe that was one of the reasons she felt so high right now. Either that, or the nannies had decided a touch of THC was just what she needed.
But now, alternately raising her feet to break the magnetic field only to put them down again, her feet ached like a bad tooth. She hoped the nannies would pump up the pain meds soon as the discomfort only added to her exhaustion.
She shined her helmet lights down the long corridor facing her. Shadows moved at the light’s edge. Kali paused for a moment, straining to make out the shapes. It was impossible from this distance. She’d have to go forward to clear it. The mania she’d felt a moment ago dissolved in the face of the darkness.
With a sense of dread, she quarter turned, lit the starboard side of the T-intersection, and promptly clamped her jaws against a scream. A red jumpsuit-clad body floated in the corridor. It may have once been a woman, but it was difficult to tell. The corpse’s mouth was frozen in a scream, its eyes like chips of glittering ice. Despite the slashes and tears in the fabric, the jumpsuit was still in one piece. More or less. The slashes, however, were something different.
Instead of the clean cuts they’d witnessed on the corpses in the medical bay, these were clumsy and jagged as though made with a dull and warped blade. Kali swallowed her gorge and focused on seeing past the corpse. More shadows floated behind it.
She paused to make sure nothing was moving, rechecked the T, and then turned to face the port side. Her lights illuminated an empty corridor as far as she could see. Not as though that was very far.
“How you doing, Corporal?” Dickerson said.
“Oh,” she said, “just fine. It’s wonderful up here.”
“I’ll bet,” he said. “Any pinecones?”
“No,” she said. “At least not that I can see. But there are several bodies down one corridor.”
“Wonderful,” Carb groaned.
Kali didn’t want to bring them up yet. According to the internal schematics Black had given her, the bridge was directly down the corridor with the amorphous shapes. That’s where they needed to head, but something felt wrong. Not being able to see what those things were made her very uneasy.
“Squad,” she said. “Here’s the plan. I’m going to scout a few meters ahead. Carb? Bring yourself
and Elliott up, but stay near the slip-point entrance. Dickerson? Get up here. You’ll need to watch the other sections of the T.” Affirmatives streamed through the comms.
Ignoring the mutilated corpse on her left, she crouch-walked three meters into the main corridor before stopping. The rear camera feed on her HUD showed lights coming out of the slip-point. Carb and Elliott were almost out. Good. She took another step forward, then another, and another.
The blobby shadows sharpened, their shapes slowly coalescing into something concrete. Kali gritted her teeth. Pinecones. Several of them. She waited a beat and allowed her eyes to study the shapes. Each pinecone appeared to be open like the few they’d found below. Whatever ate those things had made its way up here too.
“Squad,” Kali said, “we have pinecones up here, but they’re cracked open.”
“Like the others?” Dickerson asked.
“Affirmative,” Kali said. “Carb? Be on your guard. Dickerson? What’s your status?”
“Coming up behind Carb and Elliott, Corporal. Should be at the T in a moment.”
“Copy,” Kali said. She focused her suit lights and slowly swept from one object to the other. Six of the dead pinecones floated at various altitudes above the deck. Whatever had cracked them open had obviously had a feast. Or been really pissed. She checked the walls near the pinecones, carefully studying every square centimeter. Her heart sank. “Squad. More of that acid shit on the walls.” She turned her head upward and cursed. “And on the ceiling. Be careful when you’re coming through here. Touch nothing.”
“Copy, Boss,” Carb said. “They really need a janitor on this ship.”
“No shit,” Dickerson said. “Maybe you need a change in careers.”
Carb giggled. “Fuck yourself, Dickerson.”
“Quiet the chatter,” Kali said. They did. It was nerves and she knew it. Once the channel fell silent, she regretted saying anything. Without an atmosphere, it wasn’t as though there was anything to hear through the external audio pickups. And at least the bickering covered the sound of her heart thumping in her ears.
She checked the schematics. Ten meters separated her squad from the bridge. If this were any other ship, she’d already be at her destination. Instead, she managed maybe a step every few seconds while she scanned every surface of the corridor.
The few lines of glistening liquid on the walls were but a few centimeters long and seemed random in placement. The one on the ceiling, however, looked coiled like a rope. She blinked at it and then froze. It wasn’t on the ceiling. It was floating near the ceiling.
“Shit,” she said aloud. “Squad. That acid is not on the ceiling. It’s floating in the z-g. Start your approach.”
“Copy, Corporal,” Dickerson said.
Carb didn’t respond. Kali imagined she’d turned off her mic so she could curse at will.
Kali walked past the first pinecone without touching it. A few more steps and she had to choose her path carefully to avoid bumping the husks. Five meters. She checked her rear feed. Carb and Elliott had begun walking forward, Dickerson standing tall behind them, body facing the opposite end of the hall. Once he cleared the T-intersection, he’d be able to focus on covering the rear without worrying about getting flanked.
The suit-lights finally broke through the gloom to paint a large rectangular slab of metal. Unlike the corridor walls, remnants of bright red paint scarred the hatch’s surface. Kali grinned for a moment but a twinge of pain in her back quickly erased it. She’d been crouch-walking far too long. Her muscles and joints needed rest. But there, there was the bridge. Only a few more meters and she’d have her squad at the hatch.
She checked her rear camera feed. Carb and Elliott had moved past the last of the pinecones. Crouch-walking a meter behind them, Dickerson had too. Blowing a hiss of pain through her teeth, Kali rose from the floor and to her full height.
The corridor had the occasional vent, although she was unsure whether they were for atmosphere recycle or actual fans. No matter. They were smaller than the vents had been in the medical bay. In other words, she didn’t think the pinecones could float through them. Small favors.
“I’m at the hatch,” Kali said. It was two meters from her. “You should be clear up to me.”
“Thank the void,” Carb muttered. “Was beginning to think I’d be crouch-walking the rest of my life.”
Kali smiled to herself. At least she wasn’t the only one sore and in pain. “Dickerson?”
“Copy, Corporal. Was just looking at something.”
Kali walked until she could touch the hatch with her glove. Finally. They were here. “What were you looking at?”
Dickerson paused. “I think that rope of acid hanging in the air was jetted out of one of the vents.”
“Oh, great,” Carb said. “You mean something’s living in there?”
“Doubt it,” Dickerson said. “Never know though.”
“Noted,” Kali said. “Now get up here. Carb? Lock Elliott to the wall. Cover our six.”
“Aye, Boss.”
Kali focused her lights to a narrow beam and searched the adjacent wall for an emergency power panel. There wasn’t one. She checked the other side. Still nothing. The rear feed showed Dickerson moving past Carb. The big marine was maybe a meter behind Kali now. “I think we have to cut. Unless you can find the emergency power.”
Dickerson grunted. “There won’t be emergency power for the door, Corporal. Not on this side.”
“What?”
“Think about it. Every military ship out there, including S&R Black, doesn’t have an emergency power cycle on the bridge hatch. If it did, you could just hit a ship with an EMP, get into the bridge, and do what you liked after you brought the power back on.” He shook his head. “The bridge on military ships is sacrosanct.”
She sighed. “This isn’t a military ship.”
“Well,” he said, “that may be true. But I don’t see an emergency door cycle. Do you?”
He had her there. She reached into her belt for a beam cutter. “If we do this together, it will go faster.”
“Correct, Corporal. I’ll get the top.”
“Good,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d need that step-stool.”
Dickerson chuckled and moved to the left side of the door. She kneeled and started on the right side of the door. While she worked on her side, he prepared to do the same, but 3 meters from the ceiling. This deck, like most of Mira, was nearly six meters tall. While they only needed a 1x2 meter opening to get through, bigger was definitely better. Mira’s perforated hull would never again contain an atmosphere, so there was no reason to be conservative when it came to ingress/egress points. By cutting a larger section of the hatch than necessary, they also didn’t have to worry as much about sharp remnants of metal shredding their suits. Especially Elliott’s.
Her beam sliced through the metal easily. She half-expected, half-feared, a wave of pressurized air to knock them both backward, but nothing happened. The bridge had no more atmosphere than the cargo bay. Once inside, they’d have a better idea why.
She and Dickerson finished the cutting in a few minutes and stood back from the fractured metal. The outline of their cut points covered the hatch like a stencil. “You want to do the honors?” Kali asked him.
Dickerson shrugged, lifted a boot, and kicked the door. She knew he’d do that. She also knew he’d turned up the magnetics on his boots and reversed the polarity. Between the force of the impact and the polarity shift, the cut portion of the hatch caved inward. It bounced off the deck and then floated further into the bridge.
She half-expected him to make a smart ass comment, but he instead brought his rifle into his hands pointing it directly into the darkness beyond. Kali quickly followed his example.
“You want me to scout?” Dickerson asked.
“Yes. Just let me get by Carb and Elliott to cover our six.”
“Aye, Corporal.” Dickerson sounded both amused and pleased.
Saying nothing
, Kali moved past him, Carb, and Elliott’s mag-locked body. She focused her lights to give maximum illumination down the corridor and took a deep breath. “Go ahead, Dickerson. Give me eyes.”
“Copy that,” he said in a thick drawl.
Kali added Dickerson’s helmet cam feed to her HUD and waited. The view dropped lower as he stepped through the make-shift doorway and into the bridge. She didn’t know for sure, but thought it likely Carb was watching the same feed. With any luck, he’d find something they could use. Or at least clear the area.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Having your mind and beliefs shattered was a lot like being drunk or stoned off your ass. Thoughts and images rattled around your brain until they tangled themselves up in knots tight enough to strangle your mental self. There was a way to untie them, but it usually only occurred after one sobered up. Dunn wasn’t sure he’d ever reach that point.
He’d been staring at the wall for the last several minutes, unsure he could even move. Colonel Heyes and SF Gov had sent them out here to recapture history. The Trio, it seemed, had sent them out here for an altogether different reason. They had suggested he ignore his orders and blow Mira into a billion pieces. Now he wished he’d listened.
If the Trio weren’t nearly three light hours away, he’d have been on the comms with them immediately, peppering them with questions. Hell, he’d be screaming at them. Worse, he’d be screaming at Heyes.
The mission had cost him a skiff, at least one marine’s life, and four more marines that were trapped aboard Mira. And instead of searching for them, he’d sent his remaining marines to put a harness on the derelict so they could tow it back to Neptune.
“Or Pluto,” he said aloud. He sighed. “What do you want to do?”
“Captain,” Black said. “Are you asking me something?”
Dunn glared at the inset speaker. “No, Black. I’m not.”
“Captain?” Oakes called over the comms.
Derelict: Tomb (Derelict Saga Book 2) Page 24