by Mark Tufo
Cedar was still struggling to get Brentner under control as I came back around; a steady stream of sparks was shooting off to the side from the contact.
“There’s fire,” I told her. From my angle, I didn’t know if it was the back end of Cedar’s ship, the front end of Brentner’s, or both.
“How bad?”
I got as close as I dared. Brentner was frantic; his cabin was filling up with toxic fumes. I could see a dancing of shadows inside his canopy as the flames had traveled up the nose, and his cockpit was on fire.
“Better hurry,” was all I told her. The shuttle was too far back and still losing ground. Even if she stopped the ship in the next minute or so, Brentner would be cooked alive before his ride could get him. His hatch blew away as he must have hit the emergency release. Luckily, he had not ejected yet. If he had, he would forever be tumbling into space, strapped to his seat. The lack of oxygen did what he intended and snuffed out the fire, but that only meant his life support clock was ticking loudly. The suits weren’t designed for much more than five minutes exposed to the extremes of this climate—or lack of.
“Cedar, he blew his hatch and the shuttle is too far out.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Not much choice in the matter.”
“How far back are they?”
“Ten minutes at most.”
“Win, we’re eight out,” Tallow said. “Coming now.”
That was many minutes too long.
It took a few more minutes to get Brentner’s ship stopped. His movements were getting sluggish, as if he was trying to move rapidly freezing blood through his system, which could very much be the case. I was less than thirty feet from him; I was going to watch him freeze to death.
“Tallow, hurry,” I told him but there wasn’t any more that they could do.
Cedar and I were side by side; I was doing my best to keep him in sight and active. He weakly waved one hand, then it dropped down into his lap. I got above and turned my ship slightly, so I was looking down on him; his legs had been burned, and now where the suit had melted away was crystallizing. He wasn’t going to make it. Even if by some miracle he lasted until the shuttle got here, there was nothing medically that could be done for his extensive injuries.
“Captain Ludlow, I am ordering you to hurry your ass up!” Cedar shouted to the man piloting the shuttle.
“Cedar.” I got her attention. When she looked over, I shook my head.
I could see her smack her dashboard.
Brentner’s head fell forward.
“Almost there,” Tallow replied.
“Head back,” Cedar said with little inflection in her voice.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“Captain Ludlow, head back and please try and keep your crew under control and off the airwaves,” she said.
“Understood.” I watched as the shuttle turned back around. I went to join them; Cedar lingered a few moments longer, giving a short, solemn prayer to the deceased before she also turned and joined us.
It felt like we’d been away from the battle for days; in truth, it hadn’t been more than fifteen minutes and yet nothing more had happened. The ship hadn’t buckled, nor fired any more weapons. Our fighters were keeping a respectable distance, considering what had happened the last time.
“Raven squad, get into attack formation. Captain Ludlow, once we have the ship covered I want you to breach the hull,” Cedar said.
I switched to our private frequency, not wanting to question her orders in front of everyone.
“What are you doing? The plan was to take the hangar if we could. They breach the hull, you know as well as I do about the DNA detectors in the halls.”
“That ship is as offline as the fighters were.”
“Are you sure enough to send them in there? To send Tallow in there?”
“Is this what this is about? Are you worried about Tallow?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course, I am. I know what he’s out here for and I know he’s quite capable of performing his task admirably, but you’re placing him directly in harm’s way on what, a hunch?”
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, Winter, but we’re all in harm’s way. I’ve yet to detect anything on that vessel that even slightly resembles a hangar area. In fact, I’m not even sure they have one. We are running out of time and that thing might be our only chance. The pulse that came off that ship…I am mostly certain that it was due to damage from the strike. It had the same effect on them as it did us. And yes, I am willing—no, I am ordering them into harm’s way because there is no other way. Do you want to freeze in your fighter like Brentner did? I don’t. I’m much too angry, and I want to take it out on somebody, and they’re right there. We done here?”
I said nothing. Yeah, I was angry too, but I had a different idea of who I wanted to punch just now. Cedar moved us in closer to the ship, but not so close we couldn’t escape if the strange pulse started up again. We waited there for indeterminable moments before we moved in closer. I didn’t like this; I felt as if we were being led into a snare and it would spring the moment we were close enough.
“The rest of you stay here. I’m going to get a closer look,” Cedar said.
I wanted to be mad at her, but what she’d said was true, and there was never anything she’d make anyone else do that she wouldn’t do on her own, again proving those very words. She took her time, thoroughly going over the entirety of the ship. I never let my guard down, fearful that the moment that I did, something catastrophic would happen, some strange new alien device would lash out and destroy my sister’s ship. When she began to fly to the far side and out of our sight, I decided there and then that I would disobey a direct order. Figured the chances of a military tribunal convening were slim.
“Pretty sure I told you to stay put,” she said to me just as I came over the top of the ship. She was much farther down, once again crawling along close to the hull.
“My headset must have got damaged.”
“I don’t see any hatches or openings of any sort, except for the ones we put there. No windows, portholes…I can’t even tell where the sensors or gun emplacements are.” She turned her ship so she was perpendicular to that section of the hull. Her front mounted lights came on and illuminated the area. “I’m looking into the exit hole; no activity, no lights, no signs of life. I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking it too, Winter, but if it’s a trap, it’s a really elaborate one. We’re going to have to risk it.”
“I know,” I told her.
“The hole here is big enough that the shuttle will easily be able to fly in and land. It must have been a storage room of some sort; it’s massive. It’s empty now; everything is scattered across the universe at this point. Captain Ludlow, I’ll need you down here. Raven squad, I want you spread out evenly across the hull. Anything so much as stirs on this ship—shoot it. Lieutenant Grennin and Delfines, I want you both to stay where you are.”
“Understood,” they replied.
“Winter, I want you down here with me. We can cover the assault team when they get inside.”
The closer I got to the ship, the less I thought they were feigning dead. It felt truly dead. Now I had to wonder: what good would it be for us? We had people here with engineering experience, but to what point? If the technology was as alien as the rest of the vehicle, it would be a small miracle if they could even work on it. The shuttle off-loaded its team without any incident. Cedar and I had our lights trained in the room along with our cannons. Flashlights bobbed around from the dozen soldiers inside.
“Nothing, no movement,” Tallow reported. “We’re going farther in.”
“Roger that,” Cedar said.
As their lights faded away into the darkness, the panic within me began to well again. I wanted to blast holes through the hull, so I could watch their progress.
“Got something here.” Tallow was on. “It appears to be a pressure-tight door. Definite
ly put in place after the strike. Must still have some live ones inside.”
There was silence as Cedar mulled over what to do. There really weren’t many options.
“Use the explosives. You need to get inside.”
“If they’re alive in there, twelve people might not be enough,” I replied to her.
“Sis, we need to find out. We’re in floating caskets otherwise.”
I wasn’t sure if trading out the one I was in for a much larger box was worth it.
“I’m going in,” I told her. “I’m better with boots on the ground.”
“Winter, you don’t have the right suit on if the atmosphere in there is compromised.”
“They have spares in the shuttle.”
“Thought this out, have you?”
“Cedar, there’re no fighters to engage; the ship isn’t firing on us. All I’m doing out here is waiting. I’d rather be doing something.”
“Permission granted,” she sighed.
I was happy she acquiesced, but I was going regardless. I switched over to regular communications. “Tallow, I’m coming in.”
I expected him to protest; he knew better. Maybe he was finally learning.
I flew into the large ship and landed close to the shuttle. In a couple of minutes, I was suited up like the rest of the team. Have to admit, it felt good to hold that rifle in my hands. There was something very different about fighting an enemy you could see up close. From the cockpit, something that was a very intimate matter became an abstract one. Killing another being should be personal; I guarantee the one dying feels that way.
“Good to have you here, Ghost,” Lendor said. “We’ve placed charges upon the door; at your order, we’re ready to go in.” There was an eagerness to his voice.
“Let’s get in there.” We moved back to the relative safety of where the ships were parked.
Tiegs, the demolition expert of the group, was ready to go.
“Fire in the hold,” he shouted.
“It’s hole.” This from Cedar.
“But it’s not a hole, not yet,” Tiegs responded. “Three…two…one…” There was a slight rumble under our feet and then a much larger one, enough that we had to grab onto what we could so as to not be tossed about.
A blast of fire and debris blew past our location and into space. This was immediately followed by four bodies, Others that were standing too close to the door. Didn’t get much of a chance to look at them, but it would have been impossible not to notice there was something wrong about them, and not just that their bodies were broken and burnt.
Lendor looked over to me. “Shall we?” he asked.
“Yes, and stop smiling.”
“This is my war face.”
“It very much looks like you’re smiling.”
“A warrior is much more comfortable in his skin when he is warring.”
I poked my head around the corner; the fire had been extinguished, though the borders of the hole were still glowing a dull red.
“Jerdig, I want an explosive round through the door,” I ordered. He came up alongside of me with his special rifle. It launched a shell that, upon impact, would blow apart and a concentrated blue plasma charge would radiate away, sheering through anything in its path.
“Firing,” he announced.
We watched as the ordnance slammed into the wall next to the hole; I grabbed Jerdig and pulled him back. The round had bounced and was heading back as its shell exploded. I landed on top of him as the blue rays snaked out. When it was over, Lendor ripped the weapon away from his grasp. For a moment, I was concerned that he might beat the other man with it.
He turned the corner and fired another round, this one neatly deposited within the confines of the enemy-held portion of the ship. I was just getting up as the glow dissipated. Lendor roughly shoved the rifle back into Jerdig’s hands.
“I think not,” Lendor said as I was attempting to move to the front.
“I know how to fight, Lendor.”
“That is without doubt. Until you can learn how not to die, I will lead. Let’s go you lot.”
As we were cautiously moving forward, Lendor held up his fingers for me to switch to another channel.
“These men have trained well, but I do not know how they will hold up in a combat situation. I long for our squad.”
I knew what he meant; there were soldiers that could do all the right things while they were in the regulated safety of a training exercise, but when your life was in mortal danger, some just froze, their minds no longer working correctly.
“You two going to chat all day or are we going to go get this done?” Tallow asked, after having intruded into our private line.
I switched back. “One at a time through the breach, then fan out, hold a perimeter until we are all through,” I said.
Lendor was first through; he motioned for the rest to follow.
“All clear.” This from Tallow. Between the missile strike and the plasma grenade, the immediate area was a twisted, jagged display of metal bent at varying angles. To our immediate front was another breach sealing door. From the small area we were in, a corridor led off in each direction.
“Can we seal the damage we did?” I asked. I would rather fight with my helmet off; I felt more in tune with my surroundings relying on my own senses than those of the equipment I was wearing, even if it did have thermal imaging and life-spotting radar. There was nothing within the range of the helmet, which meant we had at least a hundred-foot circle around us free from the enemy.
“Got a torch in the shuttle, should be able to weld something back in place. That creates another problem though,” Kolder said.
I knew what he was referring to; if we needed to make a quick getaway, we could be in some trouble. But I had to think in the long-term. If we were going to make this ship our home, we needed to be protected from the violence of space.
“Kolder, get it done. Jerdig, you go with him, watch his back,” I said.
We stayed alert as I gave Cedar an update about what was happening inside. She did not share in my outlook, said it was too much like sealing a tomb. Kolder had started welding the door when we got our first warnings on our displays. It was an occasional blip as something would run by, right on the periphery of the helmet range. With Jerdig helping Kolder and Tallow and Lendor with me, I divided the rest. Each team was responsible for anything coming down their assigned corridor. It was not a large fighting force, and a ship this size could potentially have thousands of personnel.
On more than one occasion, I got the urge to tell Kolder to stop what he was doing and open it back up. We would just wait outside and go quietly into the night…then the realization would hit me: die a slow, miserable life out in the vacuum of space, or die a quick, painful one inside. What was the difference? I only had one life to give; I wanted it to count.
“Just finishing up, Lieutenant,” Kolder told me. Took more than a moment to realize he was talking to me.
Detter was my Staff Sergeant and had been in charge of combat training. She was one of the most capable people I had ever met, male or female, in hand-to-hand and small arms fire fighting.
“Staff Sergeant, send someone down each hall see if they get hits on their cams.”
“On it. Leadtoes!” That was Corporal Leddings; he got the nickname Leadtoes because at two hundred and fifty pounds, he sounded like he had heavy metal in his feet when he walked.
He started down the hallway to our right.
“Blanks.” That was Private Blanks, four months ago she had been working the galley when she decided she wanted to do more. What she lacked for in real-world experience she made up for in enthusiasm.
“Yes, sir!” she yelled much too loudly; my headset squelched, as did all of ours.
“Ease up off the throttle, private,” Detter told her. “Go down the hallway. As soon as you get a hit on your helmet, let us know.
Leddings had made it all the way to a hatch; he shook his head when he got there
. “Nothing.”
Blanks hadn’t made it more than twenty feet when she stopped. In direct contrast to her previous boisterous reply, this one was much more subdued. “So many targets have shown up they are registering as one massive blob on my gear.”
“Come on back,” Detter told her. “Lieutenant, we need to find a more defendable position.”
There was only one option. I motioned for the hallway Leddings had checked out. The Staff Sergeant twirled her finger around for Leddings to do an about-face. We had three watching our back as we moved down the hallway in a column formation. Leddings was out in front. He stopped three-quarters down.
“Got movement. Four, no, five bogeys. Looks like they’re running.”
“We can’t let them get into position. Go!” I ordered. We ran for the door.
Lendor turned the heavy handle, pulling the door inward; Leddings was the first through.
“Another hallway,” he announced.
We could see a small group running perpendicular to our location. Three-dimensional imaging showed them to be ten feet below us.
“They’re on the deck below. They will attempt to surround us,” Lendor said.
Unlike the dark hallway we had just vacated, this one was partially illuminated, though the lights were flickering, causing a strobe effect that was unsettling.
“One good thing about the bad lighting,” Tallow said as he pointed to a small pinhole in the wall above. It was a camera port. “Most likely they can’t see us.”
That was a plus for our side, now we just had to hope they didn’t have some other sort of sensors. But for now, it was one small victory at a time.
“They’re coming up,” Leddings said, though we were now all in range to see what he had. I turned just as a hatch slid to the side. I fired into the surprised face of a monster that would have forced me from a nightmare. I kept firing as another one came up the stairs; I neatly removed its head before it fell back from where it had come with wet, heavy percussions that echoed in the small chamber. A third scurried away before I could get it.
“What in the name of fried chicken am I looking at?” Leddings had shouldered past me and was looking straight ahead. “Next time, Lieutenant, maybe don’t shoot it in the face; could have got a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”