by Shane Black
“Do we have any idea what’s down there yet?” Moo asked. “If there’s any kind of garrison or armor down there it may be a slog just getting to that gun.”
“The way I figure it, we’re going to drop in there pretty suddenly. The enemy fleet will have to respond. My guess is they will go after Barker’s Asteroid instead of us because that gun is the fulcrum upon which everything is balanced in this sector. From the time we hit dirt, the clock starts. If the fleet gets through Zony’s mines before we get control of that gun, we lose. If, however, we turn that thing around with a power source...”
“It’s going to be a question of who clubs the other guy unconscious first,” Jayce finished the thought for her brother.
“You’re betting that Perseus plus the gun is enough to defeat twelve heavies plus their escorts and ground forces?” Teller asked, the edge still in his voice.
Hunter put his pointer down.
“Only if we make no mistakes for the next ten hours.”
“That fleet isn’t just going to roll over for us, even if we point a big cannon at them,” Lieutenant Mallory said. “What do we hit after we take the asteroid?”
Commander Hunter got up and walked to the head of the table. “Do you mind?” she asked politely, picking up the pointer. Captain Hunter yielded the floor and took his seat.
“The answer, lieutenant, is archers, footmen and cavalry.”
The group exchanged glances, unsure if they had heard the commander properly.
“You might remember it as rock, paper, scissors,” she continued, referring to the screen as she spoke. “Archers beats footmen. Footmen beats cavalry. Cavalry beats archers.”
Recognition of the metaphor lit on several faces around the table.
“Now that we’re a strike fleet, we have capital ships, missile defense and a carrier wing. All we have to do is make sure we send the right ships after the right targets. Our fighters against their capital ships and carriers, our capital ships against their escorts and our missile defense against their fighters. It’s a shell game. The only problem is the ghosts.”
“Beg pardon, commander?” Jason asked.
“Whoever these jokers are, they have a habit of appearing and disappearing. My task force took out three ships at Survey Nineteen. They appeared out of nowhere and tried to ram us one by one. Even their boarding party slipped right out from under us.”
“That is a problem. If they start popping up where we don’t expect them–” Doverly said.
“Agreed, commander. But we do have a target we know we can hit at the center of that minefield. The rest is sauce for the goose.”
“I believe there was a famous general who counseled against perfect plans,” Jayce said, handing the pointer to her brother. “So let’s take our imperfect plan and ram it right down their throat.”
Fifty
Vice Admiral Charles Hughes walked as steadily as his instincts would allow. His subconscious mind was merely human, for now, and what it sensed around him was decidedly not. It was the endless abyss-like shadow that seemed to permeate everything around him. It was like a visible stench. It infused every shape and caused the ground to chill his bones even through his uniform boots.
The air around him felt heavy, as if carrying a presence he couldn’t sense or see, but still knew was there. The humidity was stuffy and oppressive, even though the temperature was close to freezing.
Changes were gradually taking place in the Admiral’s physical appearance. What he once thought were simple pigments for his face turned out to be powerful chemical markers. They were infecting his body, burrowing deeper and deeper through the very protoplasm of his cells. Changing him. Altering his thinking. Twisting his thoughts and amplifying them with raw, uncontrollable power.
The path he followed along the Ithis membrane resembled a towering, shadow-infused intestine. Gargantuan oval-shaped structures soared above, outraging the Admiral’s sense of size and physics. They pierced the murky cloud-blemished sky overhead like primitive weapons. The oval structures were arranged in a long tunnel that seemed to go on for miles in both directions. He was but a speck against the path he was following.
Then there was the seethe. It was the only word Hughes could come up with for it. Every quarter-hour or so, there would be a subsonic release of energy across the entire membrane. It was very much like a muscle spasm, if muscles were the size of a small city. Hughes suspected everything around him was somehow alive, and that he was little more than a parasite allowed to crawl about inside it.
The insect-like creatures around him seemed to draw great pleasure and energy from each spasm. Even the humanoids serving the Ithis claimed it was at those times they could get a better sense of things. For the Admiral, it was like being injected with dangerous levels of adrenaline. His heart would race. He would break out in alternately hot and cold sweats. His fingers would ache. It made him crave a release of the sudden energy. The one and only time it happened with a female humanoid nearby ended with Hughes barely stopping himself from attacking her with his teeth. That was the last time he remembered having a clearly rational thought.
For days after that, he hid himself away and trembled in the wet putrid organic sack where he slept unclothed. The savagery he saved the young female from experiencing at his hands turned inward, slashing and cutting.
Alien minds were invading his, and they were gradually turning him into a ruthless killing machine.
A killing machine with a new enemy.
Something drew him forward. He had long since lost track of time measured by human standards. The crude idea of a planet orbiting a star being used as a measure of anything seemed like a child’s toy. The heights to which his mind could now reach were unimaginable to mankind. There were concepts at work nearby he knew would so overwhelm his relatively tiny capacity for understanding his body would simply burn out like an overloaded fuse. He avoided reaching that far with his imagination in much the same way feral animals avoided fire.
Communicating with Jason Hunter had been a chore. By now, his new instincts should have driven him to simply deliver cold ultimatums and then execute them. But his confrontation with Hunter was before, when he still recognized his mind. For all he knew, he had been walking for days. He no longer ate because his body rejected food. It was beginning to absorb water from the air around him. The pain of the endless hunger made him feel like his blood was on fire.
And still he somehow had the energy to walk. Somewhere in the distance, perhaps at the end of the membrane, if there was such a thing, he could feel an enigmatic presence. He knew it was there he would find the overmind responsible for the millions of voices only he could hear. He knew crushing the last of his humanity would be nothing to them.
He also knew they would inform him now was the time to attack.
Fifty-One
Commander Hunter walked into Fury’s sickbay to inquire about the condition of the wounded from the attack on her landing party. She checked her medical officer’s reports and stopped by each bed to offer encouragement.
Having the captain and task force commander in the room was often enough to get nearly unconscious people to try and sit up or look up at least. Jayce considered this her least favorite responsibility. The only thing that made it bearable was the raw courage she saw in the faces of her crewmates. Even wounded, she could see in their eyes how urgently they wanted to serve and how much they wanted to make her proud of them. It was difficult for the commander to maintain her composure, but she did it anyway, because her crewmates needed her.
Many officers looked upon command as a burden, but one thing the Hunter clan had instilled in its most famous twins was honor, and both Jason and Jayce had accepted the notion early in their careers that leading men and women in any endeavor was an honorable thing, be it in war or during peace. The one true fulfillment of their commissions as Skywatch officers was to do their duty. They knew their leadership gave those who served with them hope, and that was always enough.
Hunter stopped at the bedside of the station corporal she had dressed down before the attack. He was still unconscious. His face was covered with bandages, leaving only enough room for the medical sensors and the oxygen mechanism that was keeping him alive. He had already undergone two surgeries. His prospects were fair, but his injuries were causing him to suddenly start bleeding internally at unexpected intervals.
Echo was at his bedside. She hadn’t been able to help him on the station, and Jayce knew that was troubling for the little mini-bot. Although she was quite capable, there were some medical realities that prevented Echo from fulfilling the mission she thought she had. Jayce had programmed her to heal the sick. Echo took those instructions seriously. So seriously, in fact, that she had long ago exceeded her initial design. The only problem was this caused her to experience the mini-bot version of depression when she found she wasn’t able to perform miracles.
The evidence that Echo was completely engrossed in her concern for her patient was that she didn’t acknowledge Jayce at all. Her only outward appearance of awareness was the soft alert tone she played at 60-second intervals.
Echo had been at Corporal Andrew Benning’s bedside, playing soothing music for him very quietly and monitoring his vital signs for almost a full day. Jayce knew that within a half-second of any problem, there would be a fleet-wide alert to come to the corporal’s aid.
The only thing capable of getting the little ambulance to leave the corporal’s side would be a direct order from the commander herself. Jayce had seen her mini-bot brave massed weapons fire on many occasions to rescue the injured. Echo certainly wasn’t going to surrender her post willingly.
The commander also knew an order to stand down would break Echo’s little robot heart. So even though she had been shot three times during the battle and urgently needed repairs, Jayce let her stay in sickbay anyway.
Hunter put her hand on Benning’s bandaged forehead and closed her eyes for a few moments.
She affixed a purple heart to his pillow and quietly saw herself out.
Fifty-Two
Colonel Moody roused himself from a deep sleep to sounds of confusion. There was shouting and banging somewhere nearby. In the darkness of his quarters it wasn’t entirely clear what the status of the ship was until a lightning-like flash strobed from the space-facing ports on the opposite wall.
Heavy weapons fire!
The colonel stumbled out of bed and swept everything off his nightstand to the floor in an attempt to retrieve his commlink. A moment later the deck heaved and he stumbled back, trying to break the fall by grabbing at his bookshelves. He landed hard and the impact dazed him. Another heave slammed him against the bulkhead. The entire contents of his quarters shattered against the floor.
The deck fire alarm began to sound. More shouting from outside Moo’s door gave him the energy to at least try and get to his feet. Argent was off her axis by a good ten degrees, which made the journey back to his commlink more of a climb than a crawl.
Weapons fire flashed anew. The orange light of an oxygen-fueled explosion lit space all around the port side of the ship. Finally the colonel got to the opposite wall and pulled himself up to see what was happening.
He could see Argent’s new fleet mates Minstrel and Jefferson. They were maneuvering into a defensive position along their flagship’s port quarter aft. It wasn’t until Moo saw the Jefferson launch a full spread of anti-ship missiles that he realized just how serious the situation was. Although he could see the Perseus escorts, he could not see their targets.
What bothered him more than anything else was the fact there were no deck alarms aside from the fire klaxon, and nobody had tried to contact him yet.
The decompression alarm sounded.
What the hell?
Finally Moo scrabbled his commlink out of the rubble that had accumulated on his floor. He noted all of the alarm channels were active but the signal indicator was dark. At least now he knew why nobody had been able to contact him. He hurriedly donned minimal clothing and pulled a blaster pistol out of the holster stowed with his fatigues. He set the weapon on maximum and went to the door.
The sounds outside were still muffled, but they were quieter. Moo couldn’t tell if it was because of the audible alarm or that the fight had moved on from his front porch, so to speak. He decided to risk it and opened the hatch. The hall was empty but filled with acrid smoke from an overhead electrical junction. The colonel peered in the other direction. Nothing.
He aimed his blaster and moved to the cross-corridor instead of braving the smoke. He knew there was an intraship console only a few yards around the corner. If he could get to it undetected, he’d be able to access Dominique and get a sitrep.
A shadowy movement made him turn. From out of the smoke a knife slashed at his face. His attacker lunged and Moo caught him by the wrist and elbow. The smaller man was slammed unconscious against the bulkhead by the colonel. His knife clattered to the deck an instant before he did. Two blinding white shots from beyond the smoke impacted behind Moody. The colonel retreated around the corner and moved quickly towards the intraship console.
Fifty-Three
The bridge of DSS Fury was in flames. The heavy stench of ozone and burned composites filled the air. It seemed there were bodies everywhere. Commander Hunter was at the pilot’s controls attempting to bank the diving ship away from her attackers. The maneuver was crude and dangerous, but effective. The enormous strike cruiser’s heaviest armor was now facing the enemy’s most formidable weapons.
“Get me a status on those battle screens!”
“Still down! Power relays are off-line. Autosystems report a memory core disconnect!” Sabrina Mallory shouted. She had taken over the tactical station moments after the second shift officer had been nearly burned to ash by a thrown phosphor-mellicite satchel charge.
“Get me engineering on emergency intraship!”
The Fury veered back to starboard, attempting to cut under the three-ship formation pursuing her. Close-range defensive weapons poured high-energy bolts of destruction at the frigate squadron, but the smaller ships’ battle screens deflected much of their power. Without her heavy weapons, Jayce knew she would be unable to engage with any effectiveness.
“Engineering! Mathis here!”
“Paul I need the autosystems back on line!” Hunter shouted. “We have no weapons control at the conn!”
“Affirmative, commander! Mains are functional! I can transfer–”
The entire ship went dark in an instant. The sound of the generators spinning down caused the bridge deck plates to vibrate. The only light remaining was from the fires. Commander Hunter scrambled out of her tactical harness and moved towards Lieutenant Mallory’s station. Before she got far, another mellicite charge blasted a ragged hole in the barricaded bridge entrance hatch. Lights from what appeared to be powerarmor helmets stabbed through the darkness. They dodged back and forth as the intruders crazily tried to climb through the breach.
Somehow through the daze and exhaustion, Hunter remembered her conversation with Hawkins. They’re Skywatch!
Jayce drew her blaster and aimed at the hatch. But when she pulled the trigger nothing happened. She looked at the dark indicators and dropped the useless weapon on the deck. There was only one option now.
She moved quickly to the breach, grabbed the first intruder’s helmet with both hands and heaved back. The sudden change in momentum pulled the armored humanoid off balance and he piled through the breach, leaving a sudden open space behind him. Hunter quickly went to his left side and found a concussion grenade right where it was supposed to be. She detached it, armed it and underhanded it with all her strength through the breach. She ran back to a semi-conscious Lieutenant Mallory and dove her to the deck.
The explosion nearly ripped the air out of their lungs. Somehow Commander Hunter managed to reach up and activate Fury’s self-contained disaster beacon. Its indicator glowed white for a few moments and then began blinking.<
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Fifty-Four
If Master Chief Buckmaster had been asked to describe it later, he would have said “it was like pouring fire out of a bucket into the flight deck.”
Nobody saw the first attacking ship coming. Everyone saw the second and third. They rammed through the spaceports forward and aft on Flight One. The explosions shattered everything solid and set off most of the missile ordinance mounted on the row of paladin mechs. Nearly half of Second Airborne went up in the secondary explosions. Fire control systems went into operation instantly, using powerful sealed ventilation systems to decompress the deck and deprive the fire of oxygen. All the human personnel were forced off the deck and could only watch from their emergency chambers as plasma fires and magnesium ignitions continued to burn from one end of the flight bay to the other.
A security contingent was fast at work donning tac suits and powerarmor to defend the now wide open egress points on Flight One fore and aft against boarding parties. The heavy suits would give them both anti-gravity tools, man-portable magnetic shielding and breathable air, so they would be able to function in the suddenly hostile, airless and radiation filled flight deck.
Meanwhile, at the other end of Flight One, Argent’s firefighting detail was hard at work battling a spider-like magnesium eruption that was threatening the first of Flight One’s fuel stations. They knew the unstable chemicals and isotopes stored in the temperature and pressure-controlled station would react with both violence and unpredictability if the white-hot energy source managed to pierce the protective chamber around the station’s inner mechanisms.
Suddenly, fast-moving anti-personnel batteries emerged from the ceiling and pivoted snake-quick to bear on the aft spaceport. A boarding party dressed in all-black tac suits was deploying from a small assault ship. A set of three batteries automatically opened fire, rapidly pouring lightning-white lances of super-hot plasma energy at the enemy attackers. A wire-guided missile weapon of some kind tore across the enormous open space and impacted the ceiling near one of the destruction-spraying batteries. The explosion shattered metal and composites, causing huge pieces of wreckage to fall five stories to the burning surface below.