“Stick our head around the corner and see what shoots at us, huh?”
“You have nothing to worry about, Captain Jonas. If there’d been anyone alive on that Cadaveron, they’d have blown the Goliath into pieces by now, rather than see us escape to Confederation-controlled space. However, if we’re to bring a Ghast warship to a populated planet, we need to be sure its AI is not able to transmit its location.”
“We’re not a warship, Captain Duggan. We might not even be able to detect its transmissions, let alone try and block them. If we do somehow manage to get it into the cargo hold, our hull won’t stop outbound comms either.”
“I know. I’m going to take some of my squad onto the surface and we’re going to have a look onboard. You carry explosives on the Goliath, don’t you?”
Captain Jonas could only nod, leaving Duggan to worry about the details of his proposal. He had no idea if his plan was going to work, but was determined he wouldn’t give up without trying.
Chapter Fourteen
An hour later, Duggan was in the cockpit of the same transport craft that had recently brought his squad away from the surface. In the passenger area, a row of suited men and women sat, their bodies rocking in time to the faint buffeting the transport was subjected to. They carried their rifles, and three of them had heavy packs of explosives from the stores on the Goliath. The suits looked worse for wear after the blast from the Cadaveron’s missile earlier. Santos had been forced to stay behind because his helmet power supply had failed. As well as that, Butler had swapped suits with Chainer, since the Lieutenant’s suit was too damaged to risk wearing. Therefore, they’d left Butler as well, in order to bring Breeze and Chainer who were better-placed to figure out the equipment on the Ghast ship’s bridge. There were suits on the Goliath, they just weren’t designed for combat use.
“We’ll be landing in six minutes,” said Duggan. “Are you all excited to see the insides of a Ghast warship?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, sir,” said Ortiz. Duggan knew she wasn’t exaggerating.
He kept the transport low to the ground, more out of habit than anything else. When they flew over the edge of the vast impact crater, he brought them up higher so he could focus the sensors on the crash site. The view on the closest screen changed to show a zoomed-in section of the distant centre and Duggan mirrored it through to the passenger bay. The image looked unfocused - there was a distinct shimmering from the heat, which the sensors struggled to correct. Gradually, the details became clearer, revealing the damaged hull of their target. The Cadaveron was in one piece as Jonas had said. It didn’t look much like a warship any more – the nose had been flattened and the sides were deeply scarred. Nevertheless, there was something unpleasantly threatening about the remains, as if the vessel were dangerous even in its current state.
“How did it stay in one piece?” asked Flores. “I bet it came down at a hundred klicks per second.”
“It’s almost solid metal, Soldier. Denser and stronger than almost any other material – our own warship engines aren’t much short of thirty tonnes per cubic metre and I’m sure the Ghasts’ engine technology is on par with ours. If it had been hollow, the pieces would have burned up or scattered across a million square kilometres.”
“Has there been any sign of movement or life since it went down?” asked Ortiz.
Duggan touched the screen to zoom in further. He panned across the length of the Cadaveron. There were two huge holes in its port side.
“The life support can sustain the crew on a jump to lightspeed,” he said. “If it was functioning when they landed, there’s a good chance they’d be alive. The fact that we’re alive and not deconstructed into atoms by a missile strike tells me for sure they’re all dead.”
“We can learn a whole lot from that ship, I take it?” asked Ortiz.
“We need this vessel badly, Sergeant – to learn the weak spots. If the life support is vulnerable or there are other design flaws, we might even be able to program our own missiles to target those areas of their warships.”
“I’ll bet the Goliath’s captain wasn’t happy when you told her what you wanted to pick up,” said Breeze.
“I don’t think she was expecting it,” said Duggan. “I’m going to fly the length of the hull, to see if there’s any obvious way to enter it. If it’s shut up tight we’re going to be here a long time, which is bad news when we don’t know if there are any other Ghast ships incoming.”
He took them close, descending carefully into the seven-kilometre-deep crater. The sensors of the transporter reported the surrounding rock to be dense with metal ores. Duggan wondered what the damage would have been like if the Cadaveron had crashed into soft rock. Their destination loomed ahead - the hull was a dull silver, similar in appearance to a Corps vessel. However, the Ghast ship was slightly more irregular in shape, with extra angles and curves. There were also one-hundred-metre domes at each end, which Duggan knew housed beam weapons.
“Ugly looking thing,” said Chainer.
“I’ll bet they say the same thing about ours,” said Dorsey.
“Have you been reading a book on understanding the enemy?” asked Flores. “Love Thine Murderous Bastard Alien Neighbour?”
“Piss off, Flores - before I shoot you in the balls,” she retorted.
“You’d need to be a good shot,” said Morgan, producing a series of jeers across the comms.
From a distance of two hundred metres, the Shatterer missile holes looked even more devastating. Their blasts had ripped deep into the craft, tearing through several dozen metres of the outer armour. Beneath, the colour of the metal changed to a greyish blue that Duggan recognized as part of the engines. The transport had only moderate shielding, so he didn’t get any closer, nor stay for longer than he needed to.
“Any idea where they get in and out?” asked Chainer.
“It’s usually somewhere underneath,” said Duggan. “It seems to change from ship to ship.”
“If it’s sealed up, you know we’ve got a cat’s chance of getting inside, no matter how many explosives we stick to it?” That was Breeze, speaking privately.
“We won’t know until we’ve looked, Lieutenant.”
The front of the heavy cruiser was embedded deep into the rock, with the tail pointing upwards at a slight angle. Duggan flew as close as he dared, hoping there’d be a visible means of entrance. There was nothing on either port or starboard. The underside of the vessel was similarly without visible opening, though it was too low to the ground to see for certain.
“I’m going to fly us over the top,” said Duggan. The transporter climbed smoothly upwards at his command and he directed it to run above the length of the Ghast ship.
“What’s that I can see on the screen, sir?” asked Ortiz. “There’s something sticking out.”
“I see it too,” said Dorsey.
Duggan brought the transporter to a halt and kept it hovering, fifty metres over the vessel below. He squinted at the pilot’s viewscreen until he saw what Ortiz had mentioned – it was a nondescript metal post, a few metres in length, sticking directly upward from the hull.
“I think that’s an external sensor array, sir,” said Chainer. “It looks similar to one of our comms beacons, except we keep ours housed under half a metre of armour. Maybe the Ghasts’ tech isn’t capable of operating that way.”
“What happens if we plant explosives on it?”
“You’ll stop that single array from working. I’d guess a ship this size would have dozens like it protruding from all over.”
“Some of them on the underside?” asked Duggan.
“I’m sure there will be, sir. They might be bent or flattened, but there’s always a chance they’ll still work.”
The fleeting hope of destroying all the external sensors to disable the Cadaveron’s ability to communicate slipped away. Duggan swore. He could feel his stress rising, which he knew was a symptom of his increasing tiredness. The wound on his forearm
was hurting progressively more and he’d not been able to spare the time to have anyone look at it. He’d not removed his suit and didn’t know how much of a mark the Ghast projectile had left behind on his flesh. He didn’t want to dwell on it.
“I’m going to put us down, so we can get out and have a better look underneath,” he said.
The floor of the crater was uneven and sloped towards the centre. The transporter was designed to land on a variety of surfaces and it settled without fuss. The side door hissed open and lowered itself to the ground. As he stepped onto the heat-scalded grey rock, Duggan felt tiny in the shadow of the crashed spacecraft. The air temperature was over eighty degrees, with heat continuing to spill into the atmosphere from the Ghast ship.
“I’m not expecting trouble, but turn on your movement sensors and keep an eye out. We’re looking for a boarding ramp. You all know what one looks like – theirs aren’t any different to ours.”
There was less room underneath the Cadaveron than Duggan had expected. The immense weight of its alloys and the speed of its impact had pushed it into the rock. There were a few hundred metres aft where they could get beneath the hull for a look. As he put one hand on the hot metal and peered into the darkness, Duggan felt a rumbling in the rock around him. The rumbling stopped and then came again, stronger this time.
“Get away,” he shouted on the comms, before turning and sprinting in the direction of the transporter.
The others didn’t need to be asked twice and ran with him. The vibration ended once more, leaving behind an unspoken threat that it would return.
“The Cadaveron moved, sir,” said Chainer. “I had my hand on it when the second tremor came and the hull shifted a couple of inches.”
“It’s probably too heavy to be stable,” said Breeze. “Objects this size and density weren’t really meant to be supported.”
“Damnit, that’s going to stop us doing a proper search,” said Duggan, wondering if he should call the whole thing off and return to the Goliath. Then, he saw something with his suit-enhanced sight. The front-most of the missile holes was over three hundred metres away. From the ground, it was possible to see something which had been concealed when looking from the transporter – there was an area of different colour, a blue glow deep within the metal hole.
“I can see light,” said Duggan. “One of the missiles must have penetrated through to a part of the vessel where the Ghast crew worked.” He started jogging towards it. The missile hole was way up above him, with no obvious way to reach it. The Cadaveron had taken a lot of damage when it went down, but there was no way to climb the scratched metal sides.
“I can see it as well,” said Chainer. “I think we blew open one of their inner rooms or something.”
“Back to the transporter,” said Duggan. “We’re going to try and land in that hole.”
“Sir, our suits won’t protect us from the emissions for longer than a few minutes,” said Breeze.
“You’re right, Lieutenant. Anyone who wants to wait on the ground is welcome to do so.”
“Hell no,” said Breeze. “I was just letting you know the risks.”
“No way I’m turning down the chance to get a look inside,” said Dorsey.
Duggan began the short trip to the transporter, with the others close behind.
It was much harder to land the transporter in a three-hundred and twenty metre missile hole than it was to land it on the ground next to the stricken Ghast vessel. The transporter’s autopilot refused to accept Duggan’s instructions, so he had to shut the system down and use the control sticks to bring them into position. He was conscious of the passing time, so was denied the opportunity to take things as slowly and carefully as he’d have liked. The hole was uneven, and some of the outer armour had melted downwards, leaving sharp fragments overhanging the place he wanted to land. The transporter was only eighty metres long, but it was cumbersome and not designed for precision close-in flight. Duggan spent a minute lining it up so that he could fly it in sideways, cursing the gusts of wind which seemed to have sprung up from nowhere.
He got them in, slowly and cautiously. There was no smooth place to land and he struggled to get three of the four landing feet nestled into places he was confident they wouldn’t slip away from. The rear of the transporter was heavier than the front and he managed to get the back two feet in place, before rotating the nose of the craft and getting one of the front feet down. The vessel tilted slightly and there was a scraping noise when the feet slid over the canted metal. Duggan held his breath as the transporter’s nose slipped forwards. There was the thumping sensation of a low-speed collision and the movement stopped. Duggan had hardly gathered himself when he heard Sergeant Ortiz exhorting the squad to get moving.
“The exit door won’t extend fully, sir,” said Ortiz. The door was meant to fold outwards from the side of the transporter, to create a ramp for passengers to walk up and down. It had opened partway, but a thick spear of metal prevented it from moving further. There was a V-shaped gap to either side.
“There’s plenty of room to climb out,” said Duggan. He pushed through the others and poked his head outside. “Three hundred degrees. Pretty hot,” he said, handing his rifle to Breeze. Then, he used both hands to grip the top of the doorway and lifted himself upwards. He swung sideways and managed to get through the gap without smashing his helmet off anything.
Ortiz came next, followed by Chainer and Breeze. The others inside passed out the rifles and packs of explosives.
“I doubt we’ll need any of these guns,” said Duggan. “If there’s a hole into the crew’s quarters, they’re all dead.”
“They must have internal airlocks, sir.” said Chainer. “They shouldn’t all have died from a single breach.”
Duggan couldn’t deny the logic in Chainer’s words. Still, he remained certain that this vessel had become a tomb for the crew it carried. His helmet chimed a warning about temperature and positrons, letting him know it was time to move on from where he was standing. He ignored it for another few seconds, until everyone had exited the transporter. It was dark and the light from their helmets flashed over the area, casting elongated shadows onto their surroundings. The high sides of the transporter prevented them from looking outwards, not that there was anything to see. The blast crater in the Cadaveron’s side sloped upwards, curving over until it formed a roof far above. Duggan searched for the source of the blue light he’d seen from below and found it quickly. There was a hole a few metres square, fifty or so metres up and to their left – it had appeared much smaller from below. There was a space through the hole, with the light giving away nothing of what lay beyond.
“We must be looking at the ceiling from this angle,” said Chainer, stepping back to let Duggan go past him.
Duggan scrambled over the hot alloy surface, finding it surprisingly easy to grip. His rifle was slung across his back and it clattered against a sharp-edged piece of misshapen metal as he squeezed by. He reached the hole, just at a point where angle of the slope would have made it hard to climb any higher. There was an open area on the other side of the gap and with a deep breath, Duggan climbed into the Ghast vessel.
Chapter Fifteen
Duggan found himself in a room ten metres wide and stretching to a hundred in length. There were two passages leading away from opposite walls. The temperature was lower here and Duggan guessed this area was heavily insulated from the mass of engines close by. He stepped a few paces forward – the floor was metal-tiled and at a fifteen-degree angle from level. Footing would have been treacherous had the Cadaveron been at more of a tilt. As it was, he found it easy enough to manage. Sergeant Ortiz appeared next at the hole and Duggan moved deeper into the room so she and the others could enter.
“Look at all these bunks,” she said. “Hundreds of them.”
Chainer came next. “The poor bastards in here must have been vaporised.”
“And not a damn thing they could do about it,” said Flores.
“Have you been reading that book you were telling me about?” asked Dorsey.
“We’re all soldiers, aren’t we?” muttered Flores, not pleased to have been called out.
The bunks were little more than alcoves in the walls, eight feet long and four deep. They were stacked three high, with the uppermost ones ten feet from the floor. There were deep, horizontal grooves in the walls next to them – ladders for the Ghast soldiers to climb up to reach their beds. Duggan headed along the room, keeping close to the wall as he went. He looked into the first bunk he reached – there was nothing within. Whatever bedding there might have been was either utterly destroyed by the heat of the Shatterer missile, or sucked out into space.
“I might hate these alien bastards, but there’s no pleasure to be gained from this,” said Ortiz.
“Yeah,” said Flores.
“We need to move,” said Duggan. “This place is too hot and we might have a lot of running to do to find the bridge.”
With that, he set off with his rifle in his hands. He kept it across his chest, rather than at his shoulder. Speed was more important than anything and he was certain there’d be no resistance. The passageways he’d seen earlier went left or right from the room. Duggan went left, guessing the bridge was more likely to be at the front of the ship. In other circumstances it would have made more sense to split up, but the density of the ship would stop any suit-to-suit communication and he didn’t want anyone getting lost.
The corridor they entered was oversized, as was everything to do with the Ghasts. Pipes and cables ran in trays high up on the walls. Every so often, there were screens embedded into the walls, with no clue as to their function. The blue light was everywhere and seemed to exude from the walls themselves, instead of having a discernible source.
“It’s a mixture of old and new,” said Chainer. “I’ve not seen a pipe on a spacecraft since we were last on the Crimson – I’m half expecting to see steam coming out of a loose joint. However, the lighting is technologically superior to anything on a Corps vessel.”
Bane of Worlds (Survival Wars Book 2) Page 11