Duggan was aware there was a tank outside. He didn’t know if the Ghasts realised there were still human soldiers left alive. Even if the tank crew didn’t come to investigate, it wouldn’t be long until the Ghasts in the missile emplacement realised the airlock door had been left open. He checked the surroundings – the airlock was about four metres square. The inner door was opposite the outer and was about the same dimensions. Duggan crossed over to it. There was another panel, which he touched, expecting the same lack of response that Ortiz had found. He wasn’t disappointed.
“Flores, check this door out, will you? Maybe they didn’t reinforce the internal fixtures as much as the outer ones.”
“Will do, sir,” said Flores, walking as he talked. He gave it a hard thump with his hand. “Two feet thick and made of something softer,” he said at once. “It won’t disperse the heat nearly as well as the outer door. I can open this one. It’ll need both charges and we’ll need to get outside while they burn.”
“What about the tank?” asked Chainer. “And what if the Ghasts remote-close the external door?”
“Take your pick, Lieutenant,” said Flores, already placing the charges against the seam on the inner airlock door. “I can say with one hundred percent certainty that you’ll fry if you stay inside. If you go outside, there’s a chance you’ll live.”
“Look on the bright side, Lieutenant,” said Ortiz, walking towards the outer doorway. “If the Ghasts forget to lock us outside, they’re going to find it pretty hard to breathe in about two minutes when all their air gets sucked out.”
“Yeah, sounds good,” said Chainer, putting on a show of bravado.
Ortiz was first out through the door. She dropped into a low crouch and kept her rifle pointing forwards. “Go to the right,” she said. “Try and put some of this dirt between us and the tank.”
“Charges set,” said Flores. “Thirty seconds.”
“Best not trip over the mech suit, soldier,” said McGlashan as she skirted around the motionless body.
“Think the Ghasts will fire missiles at this battery?” asked Chainer as he inched warily through the outer door.
Duggan was right behind him. “Not a chance of it.” As he said the words, a plan formed in his head. It came to him fully formed with such force that his heart beat hard in his chest at the possibilities. Suddenly, it was of vital importance that the enemy warship – a Cadaveron, he was sure - didn’t know they still lived. “Stay low, maintain radio silence,” he instructed.
The remaining ten of them got outside in plenty of time. They sat to the right of the doorway with their backs pressed against the steel mesh. There was no sign of movement and Duggan gritted his teeth with each passing second. Where’s that damn tank?
His suit detected an angry fizzing, hissing noise. Blue light flared in the doorway – the charges were purposely designed to emit as little light and sound as possible. The man next to Duggan got up and ran into the airlock – it was Flores. Hoping the soldier had a good enough idea when it would be safe, Duggan got up to follow, keeping low and close to the wall.
“Shit, the outer door’s closing,” said Flores.
“Get in! Quickly!” shouted Duggan, finishing the last couple of yards at a burst sprint. He leapt over the mech suit and got himself to the far side of the airlock to give the others plenty of room to follow. He turned to face the outer door and watched as it slid easily along hidden runners. The door was moving too fast and Duggan realised with horror that it was going to trap most of them outside. Sergeant Ortiz darted through at the last moment. She was a quick thinker and jammed her rifle under the door. The gauss rifles looked flimsy, when in fact they were about the hardest material available to the Confederation weapons plants. They needed to be strong to put up with the high internal forces they were subjected to. Something screeched – and the door stopped moving. The rest of the squad came through at the double. For a few moments, it looked as if Ortiz might have permanently jammed the door. Then, with a lurch, it moved a few inches, crushing part of the rifle against the floor.
Duggan looked around and saw only one option. He reached down and took one of the mech suit arms – it was a heavy, jointed tube of a metal he didn’t recognize. “Help me!” he said, dragging at the arm. Duggan was a strong man, but he could hardly move the body.
Others joined him. Hands reached beneath the suit and between them they hauled it over the smooth floor and dumped it across the doorway. The suit was massive, but the door looked as it if weighed a hundred tonnes. The square slab of metal moved again, flattening Ortiz’s rifle completely. Then, it connected with the mech suit. The door didn’t slow and it pressed the dead Ghast against the far edge of the doorway. The suit creaked as it was crushed between the door and the frame.
“Come on! Do it!” said Dorsey.
Just as it seemed the suit might not be strong enough, there was a grating sound and the square door stopped moving. Duggan let out a breath and went over to see the result. The mech suit was badly crushed, but it had left a narrow opening between the door and the frame. It would be a tight squeeze to get out. There was blood as well – it oozed through ruptures in the suit’s metal and spilled onto the floor. Red, just the same as ours.
Duggan turned his attention to the rest of the squad and the inner door. “What have we got here?” he asked, pushing his way through.
Chapter Ten
The inner airlock door was still in place. However, the shaped charges had burned a metre-round hole straight through the middle. Ortiz, Breeze and Butler had their rifles trained inside. The edges of the hole smoked with heat and looked glutinous. A readout in his helmet told Duggan that air of approximately the same composition as that required for human life, was rushing out through the opening. There was another room visible through the hole, as drab and metallic as anything the Space Corp’s designers could come up with and lit in a cold blue. Tall, wide doorways led off to places deeper within the battery.
“It should have cooled enough to get through, sir,” said Flores. To demonstrate, the man pressed his suited hand on one of the surfaces for a half-second before removing it quickly. “Still hot if you hang around.”
Duggan ducked his head and did a half-roll through the gap. Once through, he crouched to one side with his rifle trained ahead. “Come on,” he said. When they were all through, Duggan split them into two groups of three and a four. “Three doors, three squads,” he said. “Move quickly and kill any Ghasts you see. It’s a near-vacuum on this planet, so they should be dead from ruptured lungs if they weren’t suited. Any Ghasts at the bottom of the emplacement may have had time to protect themselves.” He paused to let that sink in before he continued. “Make sure you don’t break anything. We’re looking for a control room. Find it and secure it. Sergeant, Ortiz, I’m giving you the largest squad, since you don’t have a rifle.”
The open channel filled with acknowledgements. Duggan didn’t wait around and went left, with Dorsey and Santos behind him. Ortiz went straight on and McGlashan took the right.
The way to the left entered a wide, short corridor. The three of them stuck close to the walls and advanced, their rifles at the ready. Duggan noticed there was a slight curve on both sides and he guessed they were following the perimeter of the cylinder. There was a room at the end – four metres square, with a series of free-standing metal cabinets against one wall. The body of a Ghast lay here, on its side, with one arm outstretched as if it were reaching for something. Its broad frame was clad in what could only be described as brown trousers and a shirt, made from a tough-looking cloth.
“You wouldn’t think they’d dress like us, would you?” asked Santos.
“The same, yet completely different,” said Dorsey, her voice a whisper.
The grey eyes of the dead creature stared at them from the smooth grey-skinned face. Duggan stepped around it and continued across the room. There was a single exit – a series of steps led down, the curvature clearly visible. The interior lights burned from indent
ations in the wall where they’d been embedded. Duggan looked at one of the lights as he passed – it was a fist-sized globe that emitted a diffuse light and served to illuminate heat-scarring on the walls.
“Got bodies,” said Ortiz across the channel. “Three of them at the top of what I think is a service shaft. It’s steep and looks like it goes all the way to the bottom.”
“Advance with caution, Sergeant,” said Duggan. He continued down the steps with the other two behind.
“These steps look like they’ve been welded across here,” said Dorsey. “You can see through the risers and there’s just…. nothing. Like we’re standing in a big empty space.”
“I’m certain we’re standing in a modified warship Shatterer tube,” Duggan said. “This area is for heat expansion when the missile launches. Damn, they must have cobbled this place together in a hurry. And it’s huge. No wonder they haven’t installed Shatterers on their smaller vessels yet.”
“If it was meant for a warship, that might be why there was no lock-down when the airlocks failed, sir,” said Santos. “This place must have been a death-trap to work in.”
“Yeah. It’s all good if it makes our lives a bit easier,” said Dorsey.
The steps went on for some time and Duggan tried to figure out how far into the earth they’d gone. At the bottom, the steps ended at a landing, with a wide passage leading to the right. Duggan followed it for thirty or forty metres, realising it was taking him to the centre of the battery. At last, the passage opened onto a ten-metre-wide platform that curved to the left and right, until it made a complete circuit of this central part of the interior. There was a thrumming sound here, which Duggan recognized at once – it sounded exactly like the engines of a spaceship. The three of them made their way to the edge of the platform, keeping alert for any sign of movement. There was no safety rail at the edge. Rather, there was a perfectly round hole, with a diameter of ten metres or more. The hole dropped deep below and vanished into green-edged darkness above.
“This is where they launch the missiles from,” said Duggan. “And these walls must contain the power source for the disruptor. They’ve managed to build both weapons into a single unit.” He peered carefully over the edge. Far below, there was a shape, the tip of it visible to the helmet’s sensors. “There’s a missile in the tube,” he said. “They must have to pre-load in order to fire on demand.”
“They’re big bastards,” said Santos grudgingly. “Shame we’ve not got a few of them ourselves.”
“I’m sure we’re working on making our own,” said Duggan. He dropped into a crouch at the sight of movement opposite. It was McGlashan with her squad. She gave him a single wave, which he echoed. “Anything to report?” he asked, knowing she’d have told him already if there had been.
“Nothing, sir.”
“We need to get on.” He changed channel and spoke to privately to Ortiz. “Where are you, Sergeant?”
“Still coming down the service shaft, sir. There’s a ladder, but it’s not built for us. Makes it a bit hard to climb.”
“Fine, keep going.” He closed the line and made a gesture to McGlashan and her squad to tell them to look for a way ahead. It wasn’t hard to find – there was an exit equidistant from both squads. The area wasn’t lit and it showed as a greenish square against the solidity of the surrounding metal. Duggan advanced towards it, keeping his gaze fixed firmly ahead.
Movement nearly caught him unawares. A broad shape appeared in the opening. His suit outlined it in orange, which contrasted sharply with the intensified greens. He fired at it, hearing Dorsey and Santos doing the same. The figure went down, falling back into the doorway.
“I’m hit.” It was McGlashan.
“We’re taking fire,” said Duggan calmly. “McGlashan’s hurt.”
“Need backup?” asked Ortiz.
“I’ll let you know. We’ve got Corporal Bryant up here with us.”
Another shape appeared. This Ghast was more cautious than the last and it crouched close to the wall. Something pinged next to Duggan’s head, ricocheting away. He fired back, not knowing if he’d scored a hit. Santos rolled away from the wall and pressed himself flat on the floor. He raised up on his elbows and fired twice in quick succession.
“I see at least two,” he said.
The distant shape ducked away behind something. Duggan kept firing into the darkness, hoping to keep the Ghasts pinned down.
“Chainer, Santos, Dorsey, advance,” he said.
At once, Dorsey swarmed past on her belly, using her legs to push herself across the smooth floor. Santos was a little way ahead of her. Duggan’s rifle whined as he fired it again and again, the tube becoming warm to the touch. A glimpse of movement told him at least one Ghast was still alive. Something whispered by his forearm. He didn’t pay it any heed and fired another couple of rounds, until a bleeping in his helmet became too insistent to ignore. He looked at his arm, suddenly aware of the pain. There was a puncture wound in the suit, already sealed over as the material re-bonded. He felt a stabbing pain in his neck – it was the suit injecting him with a burst of battlefield adrenaline as a precautionary measure.
“Get these bastards,” he growled. The adrenaline reached his heart like a violent kick to the chest and almost made him retch. His breathing deepened and his skin felt cold and tight. He kept firing as the advancing soldiers closed towards the place the Ghasts were hiding. Santos got there first.
“Hold fire,” he said. “I think we got them.” The soldier went towards the opening, still on his stomach. “Got three dead here.” The sound of his rifle carried over the channel when he fired four or five extra rounds. “Definitely dead.”
Duggan left the insignificant protection of the wall and sprinted across to where Santos, Dorsey and Chainer had established themselves. They stayed crouched, their rifles pointing into the opening. It was dark, but there was enough light for Duggan to see what he needed to. The three Ghasts were unmoving on the floor. They wore a type of space suit that he’d not seen them in before – they were made of a flimsy-looking material, with cube-shaped metal-and-glass helmets that might have been two hundred years old. There was a thick, heavy, heat-proof door on runners to one side of the doorway.
“They were about to lock us out, sir,” said Chainer. “We got here just in time.”
“Hold here,” said Duggan. “Shoot anything that moves.” He ran around to find McGlashan. She was prone on the floor, hooked up to the med-box that Corporal Bryant brought everywhere with her. Duggan could see a re-sealed hole in McGlashan’s suit over her stomach and there was blood on the floor underneath her from the exit wound.
“How is she?” he asked Bryant, wondering how he kept his voice steady.
“She’s in trouble, sir,” said Bryant. “We need to get her to proper medical facilities or she’ll die.”
“I feel great,” said McGlashan, interrupting the conversation. She didn’t sound quite with it.
“The box has pumped her so full of crap she’ll think she can run a marathon,” said Bryant. “It’ll induce a coma shortly, to extend her life.”
“Hand me a rifle,” said McGlashan. She sounded half asleep.
“Santos, wait here with Corporal Bryant.”
“Will do, sir.”
“You’ve been hit,” said Bryant, as Duggan got to his feet.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. Bryant didn’t argue. She knew a lost cause when she saw one.
Duggan returned to Chainer and Dorsey, trying to put news of McGlashan’s injury from his mind. Together, they walked into the room from which the Ghasts had ambushed them. It was four metres square, like every other room in the missile battery. There was a hatch in the floor, a metre to each side and almost a metre thick. It was folded back from its opening and had ratcheted runners to allow a series of motors to haul it open and closed. There was a shaft, with a metal ladder running up one side. There was a room at the bottom, but it was impossible to make out any details of what w
as down there. He thought he could see a green light, though he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a false hue created by his spacesuit sensor. There was another ladder, this one going up the side wall and into a square hole in the ceiling.
“I’m going down,” said Duggan. He took hold of the top rung and stretched out a foot. The gaps between the rungs were awkwardly large and he recalled Ortiz’s words from earlier. A hint of pain flared up from his wounded forearm as he forced it to bear his weight. “Cover me,” he said, climbing deeper into the shaft.
He descended at least forty metres. He paused once or twice to listen out for sounds that might indicate there were more Ghasts inside. There was nothing. At the bottom, he found himself in a room that was packed with screens, consoles and two more dead Ghasts, slumped in oversized metal chairs. The chairs looked as if they’d guarantee backache after twenty minutes of sitting. Duggan began to wonder if the Ghasts celebrated discomfort, or took pride in enduring it. He did his best to ignore the frozen expressions of pain on the Ghast faces and studied some of their equipment. He recognized many of the functions immediately.
“Sergeant Ortiz, I need you and your men here, at the double. Santos will give you directions. Lieutenant Chainer, come here. I need to see what you think of this.”
“Roger,” said Ortiz.
“On my way,” Chainer added.
Above, Chainer began his careful descent, while Duggan poked around. The equipment in the room had clearly been added after the missile tube was built. There were holes in the walls, made for optical connections, with nothing routed through them. In other places, screens had been roughly bolted to the walls. Chainer arrived and glanced about.
“Definitely their control room,” he said. “They’ve got everything they need. How are we going to spoil it without grenades? Are we just going to shoot everything and hope?”
“We’re not going to spoil it, Lieutenant. We’re going to figure out how it works. Then, we’re going to bring that Cadaveron in close and hit it with as many missiles as we can. If we don’t, that heavy cruiser may well be enough of a deterrent to stop the Space Corps sending out a rescue ship when we use the comms beacon. Particularly when Admiral Slender learns I’m amongst the party to be rescued.”
Bane of Worlds (Survival Wars Book 2) Page 8