by Nick Webb
Chapter Seventy-Four
Corridor
USS Stennis
Gas Giant Erebus
Vellini System
Tiberius Sector
Steve Bratta was so excited he could burst. Although, he had to concede, that would be a dangerous thing to do. And impossible. Most humans were incapable of dying of excitement, heart conditions notwithstanding. His device showed a sea of white dots, each one a person, moving around the various decks of the ship. It was working. It was working!
“See,” he said, jabbing his finger at the tiny screen. “The device is tracking everyone on this ship by their heat signature, then identifying them by smell! Well, more or less. I doubt it’s got everyone. But most of them!”
“Most impressive,” said Modi, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, tapping at the device. “And the power draw is well within acceptable margins. Shall I have it narrow down Corrick’s DNA signature?”
He was most pleased with this particular feature and, given that he wanted to show off a little to the other man, whose own inventions had inspired him to design this particular toy, said, “please do!”
Modi tapped his wrist computer. Bratta could see the data flow in. Okay. Patricia Corrick’s DNA was now uploaded. He tapped the isolate button.
WORKING
“That looks promising,” said Modi.
It was. A thin blue bar filled up at the bottom of his screen, and then one of the white dots turned blue. “Okay,” he said. “Got her. She’s moving from the bow to the stern, and it looks like she’s alone.”
“No baby?” asked Modi.
A totally legitimate question, and one to which he was quite sure of his answer. “No, there’s no other heat signature there. It’s possible a baby might be too small, but, well, hang on, let me isolate that one too.” He tapped on his keys. “Here. Jack’s in red, and he’s… well.” Bratta squinted as he examined the screen. Should have made it larger. “He’s on the other side of the ship, with a lot of other tiny heat signatures. We’re good.”
“Okay,” said Modi, a tinge of excitement coloring his voice. “Deploy the weapon.”
Bratta did so with gusto, pressing the side button. Please don’t explode, please don’t explode… The firing tube hissed as it dispensed the drone dart, the tiny device hesitating a moment before flying off down the corridor, disappearing around a corner.
It worked! His eyes were drawn back to the screen. The tiny dart—represented by a green dot-whizzed down the corridors—turned this way and that, and then met the blue dot and vanished. “She should be unconscious shortly,” said Bratta confidently, watching the blue dot that was Lieutenant Corrick stumble around.
Or, not so much as stumble as turn toward the direction the dart had flown, almost as though she was retracing the dart’s path. And then another corner. And another.
Modi raised a skeptical eye. “She doesn’t appear too affected.”
Frowning, Bratta slid open the breach and, after a moment’s fumbling, inserted a new cartridge. “That one might have been a dud,” he said, and fired again.
Another hiss. Another flying dart down the corridor. The display showed another flawless, perfect flight to its target… who didn’t slow down at all.
“Another dud?” asked Modi, quizzically.
That seemed extremely unlikely. “The failure rate on the darts is 0.02 percent,” said Bratta, loading another one and firing it. It too disappeared, quickly finding the blue dot that was Corrick. She was only two turns away from them now.
With an angry shout, their target came barreling around the corner, a woman in a flight suit, minus a helmet. She had a wild, inhuman look in her eyes. Her skin was tinged an unholy green, veins bulging out like garden hoses, and three of the darts protruding from her suit.
Bratta stared. The needles should have easily penetrated even an armored flight suit—and all available evidence suggested it had!—but still she came, growling like some kind of angered beast. Whatever part of her human psyche was there was obviously buried under some kind of, well, almost post-hypnotic suggestion or chemical intoxication.
It would be fascinating if she were not bearing down on them, hands balled into fists, howling like some kind of horrid monster.
Reloading would take too long. The launch-tube fell out of his hands. Bratta snatched up his shockstick and charged it; he wasn’t much of a fighter, and nervous energy spiked in him. He held the weapon out as Lieutenant Corrick ran straight into it, discharging its whole energy into her body.
She barely seemed affected. Corrick leapt at him, roaring like an angry animal, clawing madly at his face and forearms.
Bratta knew it wasn’t possible to fight her off. “Run, Modi!” he cried, kicking at her. “And tell Jeannie I lo…”
Clunk. Corrick slumped over him, unmoving.
For a moment he didn’t understand what was happening. This was what dying was like?
Modi moved into view, holding the dropped launcher. It was bent, now, and was probably useless for its intended purpose.
But then again, it had been useless before that, too.
“Simple, but effective,” said Modi, dropping the broken piece of metal.
Bratta pushed Corrick off him, then considered the large, unconscious woman they had captured. “Uhh…” he stared up at Modi. “Can you carry her?”
“No,” said Modi, staring back, an obvious hole in their plan becoming clear. “Uhh… can you?”
Chapter Seventy-Five
Corridor
USS Stennis
Gas Giant Erebus
Vellini System
Tiberius Sector
“So, wait.” Sampson squinted as she stomped down the corridor, her suit’s hydraulics whining eagerly, protesting the lack of shooting. “What’s the mission again?”
“Clear path to the bridge, let the senator shoot his son in the face,” said Kluger, behind her.
The other Rhino added, “and don’t get shot in the face.”
He was always pretty good at explaining stuff. “Great, I love face-shooting.”
“Me too.”
The Senator’s eyes bulged a little as he listened to their conversation. Smith leaned over to him and whispered, “yes, they have a … reputation. But they’re good.”
“This way to the bridge, right?” asked Sampson.
“I guess so,” said Kluger, shrugging helplessly with his huge, armored shoulders. “It’s always at the center of a ship.”
“Not always. In some movies it’s at the top of the ship.”
“That because they’re movies, dumbass.”
She shrugged, and turned a corner, finding the power out in the section ahead. The corridor disappeared into darkness.
Darkness. She stopped walking. Her heartbeat picked up as she stared into the inky black. Memories of the academy came back, strong and vivid. Of her first spacewalk. Of losing her tether and drifting off into the black, losing sight of the training scaffold, of nothing more than the dark, the void of space, with nothing to do but watch her oxygen counter slowly tick down, waiting for rescue…
“Hey,” said Kluger, his voice quiet. “It’s okay. Just turn on your lights. That’s why you brought ‘em, right?”
That was exactly why she brought ‘em. She flicked her eyes to the side, accessing her suit’s HUD. She selected her external light pack. Both her shoulder lamps illuminated, casting white cones of bright that blasted away the dark, reflecting off the bulkheads and creating elongated shadows off every protrusion, as though the dark fingers of a malevolent god were reaching out for her.
Better than the nothing.
“Okay. Onward.” She stepped forward into the depowered zone.
Beep.
Her foot triggered some kind of sensor. Instantly, with enough force that it might have injured her even inside her suit, an emergency bulkhead closed down, sealing off the corridor.
The whole powered down area was a trap. Great. She smiled widely.
“Alright!”
Kluger snorted into her ears. “You know they shut us off, right?”
“Well,” said Sampson, reaching to her hip and unstrapping the breaching charge there, “two things. It means that I have something to blow up,” she casually tossed the charge at the wall. It adhered, rolling half a revolution before sticking fast. “And secondly—it means they’re afraid of us.”
She flicked her eyes right again, selecting the detonator, and blew it. A thunderous explosion blasted the bulkhead out, turning the thick steel to shattered shards. Smoke billowed down the corridor from the breach, the shockwave passing through the ship’s atmosphere and washing over her suit. “Ah shit, forgot about the civvies,” she said, glancing back at Smith and Pitt. Luckily, they had seen what she was doing and had retreated a fair distance back. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Damn,” said Kluger, blowing out a low whistle. “I bet those stupid motherfuckers didn’t expect us to just go through the bulkhead. Ha.”
If it’s stupid but it works, it’s not stupid. That was her motto.
When the smoke cleared, the armored casemate of the bridge revealed itself.
“I don’t got another charge,” she said, sighing and shouldering her rocket launcher. “We should save yours. I guess I’ll ask the Ambassador for permission to enter the bridge.”
“Fingers crossed,” said Kluger, igniting the pilot light on his flamethrower.
She clicked her weapon into unguided mode, pointed the reticule at the armored door, selected chamber one and depressed the trigger.
V-WOOSH. The missile blew out of its tube, streaking toward the casemate before exploding in a shower of sparks. HEAT weapons were always so cool to her; a small explosion focused inward, superheat a rod of copper and turning it into plasma. Cut through armor like butter. Three more tubes left.
V-WOOSH, V-WOOSH, V-WOOSH. Three more explosions, three jets of plasma tearing the doorway to shreds. The HEAT warheads blew fist-sized holes in the armor and buckled the metal.
Kluger ran up and jammed the nozzle of his flamethrower into one of the holes she’d blown in the door. A bright, fiery orange light filled the inside of the bridge as he turned into a personal little hell for anyone inside. Damn bastard emptied the whole tank, then gripped the buckled, warped casemate and, with a loud grunt and the whine of hydraulics, pulled it off its hinges and tossed it aside.
Sampson ejected the magazine for her missile launcher, clipping in another one. As she secured it, a burning figure leapt out of the smoke, huge arms like tree trunks. One of the brutish mutants. “Contact!” she said, gesturing behind her to the other two Rhinos. “We got a Greenie!”
The mutant slammed his massive fists into Kluger’s chest, crumpling his armor and throwing him off his feet, sending himsliding across the deck. Like a hunting cat the thing leapt toward her, skin crackling as it burned.
The two Rhinos stepped up, spinning up their miniguns. Twin streams of fire leapt from each, slamming into the chest of the creature and spraying blood out behind it, but even such grievous wounds didn’t seem to slow the massive creature.
Sampson pointed her rocket launcher at the thing, but he swatted it aside at the last minute. Her missile flew high, screaming as it scraped off the roof and bouncing down the corridor like a pinball, slamming into the discarded casemate door and exploding.
No time to think about it. The mutant’s shoulder slammed into her chest, blasting her backward. The thing was too close for her companions to fire; it was up to her.
Sampson punched back, hydraulically powered fist slamming into the Greenie’s face. He took the blow solidly and returned it, slamming his forearm into her shoulder, driving her down to one knee and shattering the light. The other shorted out from the impact.
Darkness. Darkness all around her.
Another impact on her chest plate. Her systems started screaming at her.
DANGER
ARMOR COMPROMISED
No. She wouldn’t die in the dark. Sampson roared in anger, drawing her sidearm and emptying the magazine into the thing’s gut.
It didn’t kill it. But the close range impacts seemed to stun the creature a bit; she shoved the thing off her, staggering to her feet. She picked up the beast and hurled him down the corridor.
The mutant landed on his side and rolled onto his feet, ready to attack again, face outlined by the burning bridge behind him, a dark shadow outlined by an orange glow.
Sampson blindly found her dropped missile launcher, pointed it at his chest, and squeezed the trigger. V-WOOSH, V-WOOSH, V-WOOSH. Three missiles struck the mutant, each one blasting him to bits, the last one taking off his right arm. The other Rhinos behind her emptied their magazine canisters into the body, a stream of bullets turning the horrible mutant heap into a red smear on the deck. And then Kluger threw his own det-charge on the biggest part of the body, turning it into a pink mist that sprayed down the corridor.
Smith and Pitt cautiously peered from around the corner at the end of the corridor. “Is the way clear yet?” said the CIA officer.
Sampson shrugged. Her suit was malfunctioning and she could barely walk.
And there was silence, save for the crackling fire from the bridge.
“Do you think we got him?” asked Sampson.
Kluger crept forward. “Think so,” he said, idly picking up what she assumed was a piece of the creature’s shoulder. “Where’s Commander Pitt?”
In answer, a clean shot from an assault rifle pierced Kluger’s faceplate, splattering it with blood.
He fell, unmoving.
Commander Pitt—Spectre—stepped out of the captain’s ready room and onto the bridge, cradling his assault rifle. “One down. Four to go, it appears.”
Chapter Seventy-Six
Emergency Airlock A-2
USS Stennis
Gas Giant Erebus
Vellini System
Tiberius Sector
Lynch felt like a giant man walking on a miniature, desolate, metal moon as he awkwardly shuffled across the outer hull of the Stennis. Every step made his stomach lurch; if either one of his magnetic boots failed, he would be sent drifting off into the void, hoping that someone would remember to come after him.
He had his emergency beacon, of course, but—
There was no point thinking about it. He had to focus on finding the navigational array. He had to disable it so that the bad guys couldn’t open up another one of those damn portals. Otherwise, it was all for nothing. Then he could fuck it up quicker than white on rice, and they could all go home for steaks and drinks. Except Modi. He would have a veggie korma or whatever. Blasted robot, eating plants and stuff… real men loved a nice, juicy, rare steak. One that just needed a bandaid to start mooing again.
No time to think about steak, either. He put one boot in front of the other, walking toward the bow of the ship, focusing on the metal deck below him. Opening the portals to the future was—somewhat unsurprisingly—a complicated-as-hell procedure and he was fairly confident that a well placed detpack would take care of that little problem.
Lynch risked a glance up at the endless void of space. There was a pronounced lack of weapons fire between ships. Nobody was shooting. Everyone wanted everyone else alive. Worked for him. He didn’t have time to die here. Too many steaks to eat.
The huge bulk of the navigational array appeared over the lip of the bow of the Stennis, its angled dish pulsing with energy, his suit’s sensors almost completely overwhelmed. Was standing this close to the dang thing giving him cancer? Probably.
No sign of any way to shut it down from the outside. Might as well blow the thing, and standing around wasn’t going to help none. Lynch reached behind him, unhooking the detpack from his belt and brought it out in front of him. He adjusted the timer. Four minutes should be enough for him to waddle back to the airlock—or at least, beyond the lip of the bow—and get clear.
A flash off to one side caught his attention. There was a towering mutant
there, wearing a similar looking suit to him, but oversized, pointing a gun his way. Another flash from the gun barrel.
Lynch realized, with a start, that he was being shot at.
He crouched low and waddled toward the navigational array as fast as he could, keeping his head down to avoid the silent, invisible gunfire, hugging the detpack close to his chest so he didn’t drop it. Dammit. Dammit. At least the mutants couldn’t shoot straight. He practically fell behind the dish.
If he wasn’t getting cancer before, he definitely was now. Lynch pulled out his pistol, risking a peek around the side of the dish. The mutant was silently advancing, firing its weapon from the hip, seemingly uncaring for its total lack of accuracy. Rounds threw up sparks as they skipped off the hull and navigation dish, disappearing off into space.
Slowly, slowly, catch the monkey… that rifle would eventually run out of ammo. Wait for it, wait for it… Lynch leaned around the edge of the dish, baiting more shots from the mutant.
Then the flashes stopped. The brutish thing shook the weapon angrily, silently shouting something that the void of space stole away. Lynch broke cover, leveling his pistol at the mutant and emptying the magazine. Shots struck the creature’s chest. It didn’t seem to care, almost laughing silently, but then the air hissed out of the gunshot holes, seeming to steal some of the humor.
Damn thing was tougher than buffalo hide. Lynch reloaded and mag-dumped the bastard again. The air poured out of the mutant’s suit and, after a moment’s flailing and gasping, he slumped over, magnetic boots keeping him upright.
No time to celebrate. More were coming. They wouldn’t send one guy alone. Lynch dialed the timer on the detpack to five minutes—sooner was better!—and jammed it into the base of the dish. That would have to do. Good enough for government work. Now it was time to get the hell away from here.