by Kalvin Thane
“You won’t get to see one this time, either,” Trenn said.
“I’m not going?” Sale asked. “But I’m fit enough to walk around a ship, Commander. You can’ keep me from this! I—”
Trenn raised defensive hands. “I didn’t say you weren’t going, Sale. I said you wouldn’t get a look at one of their ships.”
“Why not in The Arm?”
“This one’s a little... unusual.”
“IT’S A DAMN ROCK!” Alden spat.
“Give me some room, will you?” Sale protested. She used her elbow to push Alden back from the carrier’s window. “This is one of their ships?” she asked.
“It’s hollow.” In the seat next to her, Trenn leaned forward against the straps, studying the rough, spherical shape ahead. “Readings show a spherical chamber that takes up half the volume of the asteroid. There’s a drive system at one end, and what looks like a command and control area at the opposite side.”
Sale whistled softly. “So they hollow out asteroids to make ships? Creepy.”
“I’d call it stealthy,” Trenn corrected. “What better camouflage?”
“And yet we found it.”
“A deep space vessel was cataloguing some of the dark worlds. The trajectory of this body was all screwy, so they reported it.”
“So it’s drifting?”
“Seems to be.”
“And no Creepy life forms on board?”
“None that we can tell.”
“What about nanobots? We don’t want the carrier to get eaten up.”
“And I don’t want another steam shower,” Alden added from behind them.
“That’s why the techs are aboard. We’re to escort them as they sweep the rock. We watch for Creeps, they keep an eye out for Micro-creeps.”
“Cosy.”
Sale kept the carrier moving forward, closing slowly on the irregular asteroid. In the poor light of the interstellar void, discerning surface features was difficult. The brilliant line of the distant ‘Trailing Arm,’ a wide strip consisting of millions of stars, was occluded by the dark gray shape ahead.
“Is it drifting toward our Arm, or away from it?”
Sale checked her scanners. “Toward us, at around a quarter light speed.”
“That isn’t drifting! That’s a damn stealth approach.”
“Could it be monitoring our space?” Trenn asked.
“If it is, it’s extremely stealthy.” She glanced back at Alden. “There are no emissions whatsoever.”
“It could be a mine,” Trenn suggested. “Or a trap of some kind.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Alden said.
“Six minutes to approach.”
Trenn climbed out of the co-pilot’s seat. “Time to gear up.”
When Trenn was gone, Alden leaned forward. “How’re you doing?”
Sale scowled at him. “Are you messing with me?”
“No. I just... I said some stuff back there. About you playing instead of working.”
“Oh, now you recognize I’m working?”
“I... you’re part of the team, Sale. And you’ve been through some rough shit.” He couldn't help but glance at her gleaming legs, carelessly exposed to the casual eye. “I’m not sure how well I would have coped, that’s all. Respect.”
“Alden!” Trenn yelled from the cargo bay. “Get your worthless butt into some gear. At least make some pretense at being a marine.”
He ignored the call. “So we’re cool?”
“We’re cool,” Sale replied. She kept her eyes firmly forward. Only once Alden had gone, did she allow a small smile to creep across her face.
“FINISHED CHATTING?” Trenn called. She didn’t bother to look up from buckling on her armor, which instantly made her look wider, but not taller. She needed a vacuum helmet, Alden decided. Something that completely enclosed her head... and cut out the sound of her voice. Maybe then her body would be in proportion. Trenn’s insistence on wearing masculine armor was ridiculous in his opinion. Others were divided on the subject. The twins thought it showed great respect to her fallen commander, Bax, who died from a fatal neck wound during a partially-successful raid on a Creepy missile base. Trenn assumed command, removing his undamaged, but blood-stained body armor, and ordered the sappers to set their charges. Much of the base was destroyed, but half the squad failed to return. Two carriers were also reported missing.
After the raid, Trenn was promoted to acting commander, and continued to wear Bax’s armor, which bore the insignia of rank. When those were blasted away by shrapnel, Trenn used a cutter to carve them back in, larger than ever. Her half-crazed raids became the stuff of legend, and ensured her eventual promotion to full commander.
“Wolf reporting for duty, Commander.”
“Glad you could join us, Alden,” she replied.
“Wolf.” He held up his defaced chest plate. “It says Wolf on here.”
“I’m sure it says hand wash on your underwear too,” Trenn countered.
“He gets to be called Krul.” Alden pointed to the behemoth behind him.
“Oh!” Trenn finally looked at him, her eyebrows climbing. “Your full name is Clancy Mier Alden, yes? Which part of that is too difficult for us to pronounce and needs to be shortened?”
“It’s still Wolf.”
“Until the day you transform under a full moon, or perform some other particularly lupine miracle, you’re Trooper Alden, front and center. Squad, ready! That includes you, Alden, unless you’d prefer the brig.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Alden shuffled into line alongside Dun as he fastened his armor into place.
“You will be big hero one day, Wolf-man,” Krul said.
“Shuddup,” Alden muttered.
“Three minutes to contact,” Sale called over the speakers.
“Listen up troopers!” Trenn snapped. “We are about to enter hostile enemy territory. “
“IT’S A DERELICT,” ALDEN pointed out.
She scowled at him.” And you’re qualified to make that assessment from a thousand meters distance, Trooper?”
“It’s what they said on the ship.”
“That was a guess. It’s our job to make sure this isn’t a spy ship, a weapon of mass destruction or simply a mine. Should it show any signs of these, the cruiser will obliterate it.”
“Should’ve done it already,” Alden muttered. “Save everyone a lot of trouble.”
“Our job,” Trenn snapped. “Is to make sure it’s safe, and to help the techs get as much information from this hunk of rock as possible. Trooper Alden has already reminded us that harvested alien tech helped create our current generation of rifles, our latest warships and even Sale’s legs.”
“I got kicked for saying that,” Alden protested.
“Because you said it,” Dun said quietly.
“Shuddup!”
“We’ll split into two groups. Dun, Alden... you’ll cover one tech. Kell and I will cover the other.”
“We’re babysitting?” Alden asked. Dun didn’t answer.
Trenn turned to the behemoth. “Krul?”
“Mum?”
“Linger close to the inner airlock. Make sure it stays open. If we hit trouble, I want a fast evacuation.”
“Yes, Mum.”
“Two minutes.”
“Masks out!” Trenn called. As one, the squad members pulled a pliable, transparent visor from a pouch built into the waist of their chest-plates. When all five were ready, even the lethargic Alden, Trenn ordered ‘masks on.’ The masks were applied, and fastened to the trooper’s faces and ears with a soft hiss, leaving their hands free. Narrow tubes snaked down to their sides, supplying them with breathing air. Two women, dressed in pale blue vacuum suits, and wearing full helmets, stepped up behind the squad and prepared to move out.
“One minute,” Sale called. Arms rose to grasp dangling straps.
“Ready!” Trenn replied. The cargo ramp shifted minutely, and a brief hurricane tore at the assemb
led troopers. The techs staggered, unaccustomed to abrupt depressurization. Their suits swelled and stiffened. When the blast died away, the ramp dropped fully, exposing everyone to the infinity of space. The techs shifted nervously, exchanging glances, but the troopers remained still as the possibly-derelict asteroid slid into view.
Sale stared fixedly at the monitor, positioning the carrier as delicately as the sixty-year-old stick would let her. Her tense breaths misted her mask, which distracted her only a little. When they were drifting backwards, she killed the spin gently. Spilling the squad into space or even onto the decking would gain her a reputation for clumsiness.
Silent puffs from the retros slowed their approach, halving their velocity every ten meters. The carrier came to a complete stop less than two meters from the slowly-turning ball of rock, which dwarfed the carrier by a factor of fifty.
“The cruiser identified an airlock,” Trenn’s electronic voice told the troopers. “It’s an oval crater and should be coming around... right about now.”
Exactly on cue, the crater crept into view, filling the view from the ramp. Alden nodded his appreciation for Sale’s skills. Maybe old tin-legs wasn’t such a bad pilot after all.
“Go!” Trenn waved the squad down the ramp. The moment their boots left the deck, they drifted across to the rocky sphere, propelled by their last footstep. Alden hit first, followed by Krul. They clung on, ready to assist their comrades. Dun hit the rock hard, but hung on to the crater’s edge. Kell hit, bounced, and was caught by his twin, who pulled him to safety.
The techs followed at a leisurely, and somewhat nervous pace, barely catching the crater’s trailing edge. The asteroid’s slow spin carried the squad away from the carrier, which continued to yawn widely, and if Alden was honest, invitingly.
“Charges!” Trenn called. Dun and Kell worked their way toward the upper edge of the crater. A dark patch of rock moved aside when they pushed, revealing an electronic panel with oval, and over-sized keys.
“Krul-sized,” Dun commented. He placed a silver disc on the panel, pushed down hard, and the twins scurried backward, hand over hand. A silent puff of shattered electronics and rock fragments erupted from the panel. Krul moved forward, pulling a wrecking bar from a holder on his back.
His muscles bulged as he applied leverage enough to lift his feet from the crater’s center. The airlock door shuddered before giving up the unfair fight. Mist fled from around the widening gap, residue of an unvented atmosphere. The moment the gap was wide enough for fingers, the squad swarmed, adding their efforts to Krul’s.
Alden was first inside, careful to orient himself vertically in readiness for gravity. Dun watched carefully, in case his combat buddy guessed wrong and landed on his head. But Alden drifted gently down, landing softly on both feet.
“Minimal gravity,” he reported. “Maybe one-tenth.”
“Dun, follow, but stay sharp.”
“Aye, aye, Commander.” Dun followed, dropping gently to the metal decking as Alden approached the inner airlock controls.
“Charge?” Alden asked.
“No need... if there’s power,” Dun said. He pressed an over-large key, and a strip of red lit the inner airlock seal.
“We have atmosphere in there?” Alden asked.
“Looks like it. If we close the outer door, we can pressurize.”
“Commander, get everyone inside,” Alden called. Masked faces appeared around the perimeter of the airlock.
“No room,” Trenn countered. “Kell, inside with me. Krul, slide the outer door closed.” When I give the word, open up and get you and techs inside.”
“Yes, mum.”
WITHIN FIVE MINUTES, all seven were inside. The techs were obviously relieved to have gravity at their feet. Once out of the airlock, the pull had increased to one-fifth, and the atmospheric pressure allowed the tech’s suits to return to the size of overalls. They removed their full helmets, leaving pliant masks in place, but no-one was keen to breathe the alien atmosphere.
“Scan for nanos,” Trenn ordered. Both techs produced scanners, flat devices that were mostly screen. With shaking fingers, they brought the devices to life.
“What’s your name, tech?” Trenn asked the nearest woman, who was half Trenn’s age.
“Sema,” the young tech replied nervously.
Trenn patted her shoulder. “Deep breaths, Sema. We’re not in any hurry. Check, and then double-check if you need to. We’d rather be slow than dead.”
“Aye, Commander.” Sema did as instructed, carefully scanning the immediate area, before shuffling forward into a metal-lined corridor. Alden moved alongside her, rifle pointed slantwise at the metal ceiling.
“Why carve a ship out of rock, then line it with panels?” Dun asked. “It’d be less effort to build a damn ship.”
Their answer came after twenty meters. The metal ended and smooth rock began. Alden pressed a gloved hand to the surface. “This has been burned out, not cut.”
“No sign of movement,” Sema reported. “But that only means nothing is activated.”
Trenn glanced around. “So the whole place could come alive at any moment?”
“If that happens,” the other tech spoke for the first time. “We get a chance to test these.” She raised a sturdy device, holding it by handles set at opposite sides. A larger version of Sema’s scanner, the underside was crammed with circles.
“If that happens, Herli,” Sema said tightly. “You’d better hope that thing is enough.”
“What is it?” Alden frowned.
Herli smiled proudly. “High frequency ultrasonics.”
“Right,” Alde said, clearly unimpressed. “And?”
Herli’s smiled faded a little. “They’ve proven effective against the nanobots we found in the carrier.”
“I told you,” Alden muttered. “They were on my damn boots.”
“The nanobots were active?” Trenn asked.
“They were still replicating, but we got to them before they swarmed.”
“If they were set to swarm,” Sema pointed out. “We don’t know.”
“Swarm?” Kell asked.
“Spread out,” Sema explained. “We think they would replicate until their numbers reached a tipping point, and then they’d spread out, consuming material until their numbers dropped to a certain density per square meter.”
“Then they’d stop,” Herli continued. “And start replicating again.”
“Until they reached the tipping point?” Kell guessed.
Sema nodded. “And so on and so on.”
“But why were they on Cytress Vee?” Alden asked.
“A defense mechanism?” Herli guessed.
“Or maybe...” Kell raised a finger, then wagged it. “Cytress Vee was abandoned because it was infected.”
Trenn frowned. “You think the Creepys gave up and moved out?”
Kell shrugged. “It’s a theory. One of a thousand.”
“We’re not here to figure out the big picture,” Trenn reminded them. “But we might be able to add something to it. Ready to move out?” she asked Sema, who nodded.
The squad headed along the rocky corridor, leaving Krul at the airlock. With the outer door closed, but disabled, he only had to keep the inner door from closing in order to guarantee a fast exit. He glanced around the wide airlock and the generous corridor, relieved to finally be in a vessel that hadn’t been designed around midget humanoids.
Chapter 6
THE INTERIOR OF THE asteroid was vast, and as it turned out, hollow. A generously proportioned walkway circled the spherical chamber, leading off to other Krul-sized corridors at regular intervals. A single device dominated the center of the chamber, a dark sphere that absorbed every photon directed at it. Alden scowled at his torch, as if it was to blame.
The techs, by contrast were bouncing with excitement. Their fingers blurred across the scanner screens as they tried to make sense of the alien device.
“Massive gravatic anomalies,” Sema d
eclared.
“Extreme densities,” Herli reported.
“Shortwave radiation, gamma and X-ray.”
“Some kind of supercoolant flow.”
“But is it dangerous?” Trenn asked.
“Oh, yes,” both techs chorused immediately.
“Exactly how dangerous?”
“Major damage to a habitable world dangerous?” Sema hazarded. Herli nodded.
“Damn.” Trenn pressed a finger to her helmet. “Admiral, this is Squad One.”
“Squad One?” Alden echoed. “That’s our name?” When Trenn shrugged, he continued. “We could be Incursion Squad, or Steely Knife, or....”
“Blade Squad?” Dun suggested.
“Admiral, come in please.”
“Stealth Squad?” Kell tried.
“Admiral, this is... Trenn’s Squad.”
“Wolf Squad!” Alden said with a proud grin. Immediately, the techs giggled. Their eyes never left their screens, but their shoulders shook with mirth.
“Something funny?” Alden asked. His eyebrow arched, endangering his seal.
Sema turned her head. “You are never going to be Wolf Squad, trust me.”
“Dog Squad, maybe,” Herli said.
“Dog... Squad?” Alden asked in a low tone.
“That’s what they called them!” Sema exclaimed. “I couldn’t... remember?” she slowed as Alden’s scowl hardened.
“Dog squad?” he repeated
Sema cringed. “Um... maybe I heard it wrong?”
Dun sighed. “They named us after the God Squad, okay? Except they paraphrased it.”
“You knew?” Alden snapped angrily. “And are you one of those ninth-day crazies, those perpetrators of fairy stories? You are, aren’t you? You’re a fairystorian.”
Dun rolled his eyes. “You’re wrong. I don’t believe any of those tales.”
Herli raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think this is the end? That the wrath of God is striking at us... from across...” She turned away quickly, pretending to read her screen.