by Robert Culp
“Not until it hit my eyes.”
“Fair enough. Will you do that again?”
“I think not, SarMajor.”
“There’s hope for you yet.” Freddie pulls a grenade from her ammo pouch and, pulling the pin, tosses it through the hole. “Grenade,” he mutters for the benefit of anyone not watching. More small arms fire flies through the hole. Until we feel a second whump through the deck plating. Freddie waves his hand in front of the hole. There’s no reaction, no fire. Freddie and Rivers begin peeling away the petals of the iris valve. Once the hole is big enough to see more of the passage beyond, we can all see the remnants of a tripod-mounted machine gun. It is now so much scrap metal.
“That was a little scary,” I mutter. “I wonder how many traps they’ll have set for us.”
“Scary?” Freddie asks. “Hell Boss, that was fun!” he says with a chuckle.
“There’s one more, ma’am.” Black answers.
“Total two?” I ask, a little incredulously.
“No ma’am, one more than we’ll find.”
“It’s the n+1 rule,” Freddie explains. “Always expect there’s at least one you didn’t find. Now cut the chatter and let’s go find us a jackwagon to beat senseless.”
The ship isn’t large if one is walking. But patrolling is much slower. We move slowly and deliberately forward.
“Shouldn’t we check that?” I point to an iris valve we pass.
“We should,” Freddie answers, “but we don’t have the resources to do it right. Ideally, it would take at least a company to secure a ship this size. Lundeen, rear security.”
“Roger that.”
I later learn that “rear security” means he looks over his shoulder from time to time. Note to self, a rear-facing sensor for the next revision. And as luck would have it, the attack happens when he’s facing forward. We see the impacts on the walls, ceiling and deck. Lundeen and Rivers are each pushed forward.
“Contact rear!” Rivers shouts. We all press to the sides and most of the troopers face the rear. Lundeen and Rivers are now face down and scrambling around to see what’s shooting at us. I see six enemy troopers, three kneeling and three standing behind them with weapons pointed at us. Muzzle flashes fill my vision. A long tongue of flame leaping from the center standing trooper to engulf us mesmerizes me. The roar is deafening. I can’t help screaming. My first reaction is to run. I want to run fast, run far, and more importantly run now. So why won’t my legs move? Freddie answers my question.
“It’s not real!” his voice explodes over the noise the flamethrower is making. “There is no air in this ship! It’s an illusion of some sort. It will not hurt you! Stand fast!”
“Boss, something shot at us!”
Black yells, “Grenade out!” as it goes sailing towards our six assailants. They don’t move. We all shrink to the sides, each of us trying to make as small a target as possible. Black’s grenade explodes. And the six troopers wink out of existence.
“You were right, Lundeen,” Freddie is looking at the pock marked wall. “Ball bearings. Probably wrapped around a concussion grenade. If we take the time to search, we’ll probably find a hidden holoProjector. Nice trick, borderline brilliant except there was no air for the flame. Odd they didn’t think of that.”
“SarMajor,” I say, “you wouldn’t have to twist my arm much to get me to say ‘let’s back out of here and destroy them with their own particle accelerator.’” Freddie turns off his perCom and then mine. He leans in and our helmets touch.
“Squats, that depends on what you want out of this. We can search and salvage, or we can leave and destroy. I’ll ask for a decision and I’ll ask for changes to be locked out.”
I can hear the irritation in his voice. I was full of fire and indignation on Gallagher but when the bullets started flying, I changed my tune. And I did it in front of the troops. That’s not allowed. “You’re right, as usual. We’ll continue the mission. But the next chance we get, we’re uploading some WARBOTs for these parts of the mission.”
“Roger all, ma’am.” He leans back and we both turn our perComs back on. “Let’s move out.” We continue forward.
We move through a corridor, what are most likely staterooms are on either side. According to the schematics we viewed earlier, the bridge is accessible by an elevator right around the corner. Black is in the lead and holds up a fist, calling a halt. He points. We see the reflection on the wall of blinking red and green lights.
Freddie is on the perCom network. “You just had to say ‘WARBOT,’ didn’t you? Coop, FR14.” Freddie passes his rifle to me as Lundeen takes Cooper’s. Both of them have the large weapons strapped across their backs and are bringing them to bear. For its power, the Fusion Rifle, Model Fourteen isn’t really that big. But a trooper who isn’t wearing powered armor would have no hope of holding one, much less aiming and firing it in a gravity field. Part of the beauty of the powered armor is that the aiming reticle appears inside the trooper’s helmet. So the trooper is at least spared having to manually align the weapon with the target. He—or she—moves the weapon until the reticle is on the target and fires it. Boom. Quick, easy, and hopefully, decisive. “The rest of you, take cover in the staterooms.” We kick open a door and spill in, ready to shoot anything. Those weapons, all fusion weapons in general, should never be fired inside a starship. I’m not sure what the effects will be if the shot doesn’t hit the target, but “catastrophic” is probably on the list of adjectives. I’m doing the math in my head. Hopefully the marauder suit will be able to withstand the fallout and any shrapnel. Hopefully.
We can hear but not see what Freddie and Cooper are doing.
Freddie says, “You toss a grenade, I’ll go first and fire as I round the corner. You need to be right on my tail.”
“Roger that, SarMajor.”
“On my mark.” They must be doing a visual count. The hallway flares with the flash of the grenade then the detonation of the FR14 blast. We feel multiple vibrations through the deck plating. That doesn’t bode well. But before the blast, there are several smaller flares. The WARBOT must have survived and is firing its weapons. After a second huge flare, which should be Cooper’s FR14, there are more of the smaller flares, but not as many. Then there’s the bright flash of a third fusion round. Then silence.
“You can come out now,” Cooper says over the comm. We exit the stateroom, holding our rifles at the ready. There’s a tattered, armored form lying face up on the deck. It’s Freddie!
“What happened?” I ask as I grab his suit and drag him towards the stateroom. I can see the charred slag where two WARBOTs had been.
“He missed,” Cooper says plainly. “His first shot went wide. The only good it did was took down the force field that used to be protecting the bridge, and put several holes in several walls. The grenade momentarily disoriented the ’bots, but they mowed him down before he could recover. I took them out from a concealed position, but he was already down.”
Athena is calling from Gallagher. “What is your status?”
“We have taken fire, one down, status undetermined. How are things there?” I point at the iris leading to the bridge and tell Cooper, “I want that opened.” And despite what is going on, I can’t help thinking like an engineer. I should design an artificial intelligence module to—depending on the situation—transmit location signals and vital signs. It would be a great help on the armor.
“Roger, I will dispatch an additional boarding party to assist. ETA fifteen minutes.”
Cooper has punched this iris like Freddie did the other.
“Roger, be advised they will be superfluous in two minutes.”
“Fire in the hole!” Cooper announces. We all move around the corner.
There is a brief plume of escaping air, followed by accelerator rounds coming through the hole. I have to grin at the thought of many of them ricocheting off the inside of the door. As before, a grenade is tossed through the hole. The accelerator rounds stop. Cooper
glances through the hole in the iris. “Another remote weapon.”
“Roger that,” I tell her. “If it’s disabled, let’s get in there.”
Athena interrupts: “There are small craft exiting the stern of the ship. They are currently heading towards Gallagher. Our aid party will be delayed.”
“Understood, are there any life signs aboard? Does it look more like an escape pod or a flying bomb?”
Shawna chimes in. “I’m loading up a shuttle full of trigger pullers, Boss. We’ll decompress whatever the hells it is on our way.”
“Roger that and good hunting. Bring at least one medic with you.”
“I’ve got a few combat life savers with their bags. That will have to do for now. Do you have atmosphere yet?”
“Negative, I’ll drag Fr—the casualties to the landing bay.”
“See you soon.”
While I’ve been jawing with Athena and Shawna, Cooper and Black have finished opening the iris valve. Everything is dark in there too. I pick Freddie up and carry him back to the landing bay. “Boarding party, casualty collection point is the landing bay.”
I can’t shake the feeling that the automated weapons are talking to each other. Could they be networked? That would make sense and answer several questions. I wish there were an active computer port we could plug in to, that might shed some light on the situation but with no central power it’s an easy bet there are no shipboard computers running.
Shawna is back on the comm. “We’re away. Two bogies, fighter sized, nothing on our scanners says biologic life signs. They are evading us. They’re trying to get to our ship. Break. Gallagher, get troopers in the turrets, FR14s if available but stand by for point blank fire. I’m circling around to engage them.”
“Affirmative,” I echo. “Take them out with any available means.”
“Wilco,” Athena answers.
I finally have Freddie in the landing bay area. With the outer door open, there is a chance, albeit a small one, that he could drift out if something goes awry. I can’t have that. I find a cargo strap and anchor him to the wall.
“Cooper, MacTaggert. I’m going to the low berth areas.” There has to be a computer running on auxiliary power somewhere.
“Roger that ma’am. Lundeen, take over as patrol lead, I’m going to back up the Captain.”
“Roger that, Coop,” Lundeen answers.
“I’ll be fine,” I protest.
“Roger that ma’am. Protocol. Yours, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Fair enough,” I sigh.
Cooper finds me before I get to the lower level. The low berth area has twenty TMOD sarcophagi in it. Seven contain humanoids, four are males, three female. We have no idea why they are here, but we don’t want to take any chances on them, either. We zip tie the doors shut. Unless the pods are hydraulically powered, and these don’t appear to be, they can’t be opened from the inside. And we haven’t seen anybody else aboard to open them so we should be okay.
Athena comms again. “There are four life signs on deck two of that ship. They are towards the aft, the pinnace bay area.”
“Thank you for the update,” I tell her, “but concentrate right now on those fighters. I don’t think I have to remind you that if we lose Gallagher we are up shit creek without a boat?”
Shawna answers for her, “We’re getting them, don’t get your thong in a twist.” If it were anybody else, I’d probably read him or her the riot act for that. Right now I don’t have the time. “Our troopers are engaging the small craft, but they’re moving too fast and erratically.”
I motion to Cooper, “Let’s go find us some pirates to kill.”
She grins at me, “I love it when you talk dirty, Boss.”
We get turned around a few times on our way to the pinnace bay, but we do find it. And we find our first target. There’s a young woman in an APE suit inside an access hatch. From the way her feet are kicking around, we surmise things aren’t going her way. They’re about to get worse.
Athena reports, “Hull breach on the bridge. Some sort of probe is being deployed. We will…” the circuit goes dead.
“Athena, if you can receive me, should the situation become untenable, you will abandon ship and signal Oedipus.” I tell her. “Landers?”
“We’re on the shuttle bay now. The medic is pulling the wounded aboard for treatment. The troopers are splitting up, half to the bridge, the other half to you. Not to belabor the obvious, but we may be losing Gallagher. Oh no! Why didn’t you tell me?!?!”
“I’ll get back to you.” The good thing about a vacuum is the ability to have semi private conversation. We don’t have time for ceremony. I grab the girl by the seat of her pants and drag her out of the access hatch. Inside her helmet I see her eyes go from anger to terror in, well, in the blink of an eye. I turn off my comms and touch my helmet to hers. She raises her empty hands. “I accept your surrender. Now finish this sentence, ‘if you’re looking for Jack, he’s…’ your turn.”
“Who’s Jack? I was captured six months ago and sold to a guy that looks like a giant ant. When this ship lost power my cell door opened and I made a break for it. Who could have guessed this pinnace was missing a flow regulator?”
“How much air do you have left?” I ask.
She looks at the display inside her helmet. “About thirty minutes.”
“Then you need to hope we find Jack before then, don’t you?”
“I told you, I don’t know where he is! Please, you’ve got to believe me! Take me with you when you leave. I’ll be your slave if you want!” Her story may be true. But right now, I don’t care. The style of APE she wears is meant for mechanics and technicians. There are numerous grommets around the wrists for hooking tool lanyards so they don’t float away. Right now, they come in handy for zip tying her hands around a section of conduit to keep her from going anywhere. For the moment, there are too many bad people running around. An APE suit protects the wearer from the environment. It doesn’t make her any stronger.
“Stop,” I deadpan. “You’re breaking my heart. I can hardly breathe I’m crying so hard. You may not believe me, but this is for your safety as much as ours.” I pull away from her and switch my comms back on.
“Well?” Cooper asks.
“She either doesn’t know or won’t tell. But she’s got less than a half hour of air left. I bet in twenty minutes she’ll get pretty chatty. Let’s go.” We continue our trek to where we believe Engineering to be. “Gallagher, this is Gallagher Actual. Do you have a situation report on Oedipus? And be advised, this ship is still a hostile environment.”
“Gallagher Actual, this is Gallagher, Oedipus is still on the far side of the planet. They were on their way to assist until the secondary attack on Gallagher. I recommended they maintain their position at that time.”
“No argument from me. Any developments?”
“We are detecting a significant energy buildup emanating from the stern of that vessel.”
“Does that mean an engine is powering up or they have devised a very large bomb?”
“Insufficient data at this time.”
I was afraid this would happen when Star Chaser left us here! By all realistic uses of the word we were defenseless! “Roger, keep me posted. Drake, keep your eyes open and your targets sure, Cooper and I are moving towards the drives.”
“Roger that ma’am. Squawk ident B245.”
“Wilco,” I answer. “We’ll meet you there.” I glance at Cooper; she’s already entering the data on her wrist computer. If one of our troopers gets us in their targeting reticle they should get an alert on the heads up display. But the system won’t prevent the weapon from firing. Freddie and I went round and round on that. In the end, I had to concede that the chance of an enemy wearing marauder armor was greater than zero.
“By the way, ma’am. I detached a trooper to provide security for your original team. And the Sergeant Major’s body is being cared for.” The gravity of what she says hits me like a physi
cal blow. My feet don’t move anymore. I’m really surprised my knees are holding me upright. I can’t handle—or deal with—that right now. “Acknowledged.” I hear myself say.
“Captain,” Athena is saying. “The energy reading is spiking, the sensors can not calculate…it’s dissipating. Wait, there is a collection of energy, like ball lightning, leaving Silver Saber moving away.”
“Towards the planet?”
“Negative. We’ll have to track and predict but it looks like it’s leaving this solar system.”
“Life signs on this ship?”
“The two parties from Gallagher, the seven in the TMOD area, the individual you found. No others.”
That son of a bitch has a teleportation machine! That’s why he considered it possible that we could! And I’m betting it’s still here and operational! “Roger, Drake I still want a room by room, visual search of this vessel. That pirate is slipperier than a buttered eel. And the goddess only knows what traps he left behind.”
“Agreed, ma’am.”
“Captain, Tumeric here,” she’s one of the mechanics that came over with me on the original boarding party. “The hull breaches have been identified and sealed off. We have backup power so we can restore atmosphere at your convenience.”
“Now is good.” Tumeric says nothing, but the tell tale ribbons tied to the ventilation grilles begin to fly as air floods the ship. I start to direct someone to check on that mechanic Cooper and I found. But I decide against it. She’s a bright young girl. She’ll find a way to get her helmet off, or at least break the seal. Besides, coming over here cost me a friend. She’ll never be worth the trade. She’s on her own. “Additionally, Drake you shouldn’t find anyone else on your security sweep. If you do, capture them. If they resist, kill them.”
“Roger.” I can tell he’s hoping to find someone resisting.
“Athena, what’s Gallagher’s condition?”
“Barely salvageable, ma’am. The drones that breached the hull released smaller drones that moved throughout the ship destroying anything: circuitry, wiring conduits, when they encountered anything they couldn’t cut through in seconds, they turned away from it. We stopped counting at 103. All personnel are in the process of transferring to the outpost on the surface or with me on the way to Silver Saber. I have requested Oedipus send a long range comm to Star Chaser advising them of what I just told you.”