Armada

by Paul Teague

  Ten smashed himself against the wall once more, and the OctoBot’s hull failed completely. He grabbed at the thing, this time gaining a solid grip, and ripped it from his helmet. It left behind a thick smear of blood and brain material, which dribbled down across his visor before freezing solid in the frigid air. He tossed it away and it clattered across the floor.

  “Ten,” said Conway, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” said Ten, shaking his head. He staggered back a step and tumbled to the floor. “Long day,” he muttered, wiping a gloved hand across his visor in a vain attempt to clear it.

  There was a sudden bang of gunfire as Gray finished off the OctoBot. She kicked the corpse along the corridor, then turned back to Ten. “Leave me to do all the work, why don’t you?” she said.

  Ten took a moment before he got up off the floor. “You know how it is, a Marine has to catch his forty winks wherever he can.”

  From behind Gray floated the sound of rapid gunfire as Jackson and Davies took apart the flying OctoBots that were still battering their way into the corridor.

  “We’ve killed shitloads of them,” said Conway, “but they’re still coming.”

  “Movement further down the way,” warned Gray.

  “Where’d the others go?” said Ten as he joined Gray to inspect the corridor ahead. “There were dozens of the buggers a moment ago.”

  “Not a good sign,” said Jackson, backing along the corridor and reloading his rifle. “They’ll be back soon enough.”

  Ten nodded . “What now?”

  “Check in,” said Conway with a shrug. “Update Stansfield, find out what he wants us to do next.” She opened a channel to Vengeance.

  “The OctoBots have drills as well as needles,” said Conway, “so watch out even if you’re wearing armour. What do you want us to do, Admiral? Stay here or head back to Vengeance?”

  “Stay there,” said Stansfield, “and take a good look around. Focus on weaponry and defensive systems, then power sources and tech. We need to understand as much as we can about the spheres and their builders.”

  “Acknowledged, sir. If you need any help flushing out those Bots from Vengeance, you know where we are. Don’t let them get anywhere near your head, they don’t let you go once they’re clamped on.”

  “Appreciate the advice,” said Mason. “We’re about to start flushing the vents.”

  “Be careful in there,” Gray cautioned. “They’re fast and furious.”

  “These things are ambush specialists, they’ll be looking to shock,” said Ten. “So wear the brown trousers.”

  “Duly noted,” Kearney said as she completed preparations to begin clearing Bots from the battleship. “Are we cleared to enter, Bridge?”

  “You’re cleared,” confirmed Vernon. “We’ve got four clusters of Bots on the ship. Three are straightforward. They’re in the tech zone, around the cloning bays and in the central vents near the support systems. The cluster around the ship’s core is trickier. The OctoBots appear to be waiting. Whatever they were doing earlier, they’ve stopped, and there’s been no sign of movement or system disruption. Yet.”

  “I’m assigning one team to each of the three easier clusters,” said Stansfield. “We’ll need to approach the core with more caution because of the sensitive nature of the equipment; we could take out the entire ship if we mess that up. We’ll leave it for last. Charlie Team, you’ll each take one team. Hunter to tech, Kearney to support systems. Mason, you need to clear the cloning bays. We’ve lost the connection to the pods, so we’ve no idea what’s going on down there.”

  “Roger,” said Mason grimly. The thought that the OctoBots might have unrestricted access to the cloning pods was most unwelcome.

  “We’ve assigned five Marines to each team.”

  “You’re assigning me a team?” Hunter asked, surprised.

  “Indeed I am, Trooper,” said Stansfield, not sounding happy about it. “And I expect you to do a damned good job, but remember that I have the remote for the thing in your head. The Bots are the least of your problems if you do anything to remind me of why you’re a Penal Marine. We’re clear on that, yes?”

  “Sir,” said Hunter.

  “Alright, Troopers, off you go,” ordered Vernon. “Keep the command channels open, and don’t skimp on the updates. Your teams are assembling one level down.”

  As soon as Charlie Team had cleared the bridge, Stansfield dismissed them from his mind and returned his attention to the ship. Vengeance was in a bad way. “Lieutenant Yau, what’s the status on our repairs? Can we get an analysis of the images from the Sphere? And are we any closer to identifying those pulses?”

  Stansfield was straight back to business, and the bridge was beginning to return to normality, but the damage to the doors was a constant reminder of how close they’d come to being overrun by the Mechs.

  “Almost there, sir. I’ve sent Conway’s data to Sol, but the interference on the line is bad, and I’ve had nothing back yet. Orion will be with us in a matter of hours.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Vernon, walking over to Stansfield. “I’m going down to personally supervise the ejection of the Mechs into space. I want to make sure we get every last one of them.”

  “Yes, do that, Ed. Check on the cloning bay, too. It’s been left unattended since Davies re-activated the link. If we’ve got a new enemy on the way, we’ll need more bodies, and I’ll take them from Orion, from the other ships or from the cloning bays. We’re in no fit state to fight any battles at the moment.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Vernon left the bridge, heading for the cloning bays, and Stansfield settled back in his chair. He pulled up the feed from Charlie Team, and watched as they set about clearing his ship of Bots.

  “We’ll split into groups of three,” said Kearney as she briefed her team of Marines. “The Bots are clustered here,” she went on, dropping a pin in her HUD as she briefed her team. “We go in here” – she dropped another pin – “and we’re going to drive the Bots out of the vents into an airlock, then blast them into space. We’ll use vent maintenance drones as bait,” she said, pointing at the stack of crated drones waiting to be deployed.

  She saw the Marines share a sceptical glance. “You don’t think this will work?”

  Brewis shrugged, obviously sceptical. “Maybe, but I don’t fancy chasing them through the vents. That’s nasty work.”

  “Nasty,” agreed Kearney, “but necessary. And Arthur here is going to tell us how to make it work.”

  Midshipman Arthur blinked in surprise and frowned at Kearney. “It won’t work,” she said simply. “The Bots are in processing plant number two, it’s four hundred cubic metres in a T-shaped layout, and there’s no way to vent directly from there into the airlock. Can’t be done.”

  “But there are pipes from the plant to the airlock,” said Kearney. “I’ve seen the plans.”

  “Yes, half-metre-diameter pipes,” said Arthur slowly, as if explaining to a child, “but they empty into compressors and storage tanks, not the plant itself.”

  Kearney brought up the plans and shoved them onto the shared channel. “These,” she said, dropping a pin on the plan, “are access doors from the plant to the pipes. That’s how we do it. We open the access doors, then encourage the Bots into the pipes using low-power flamethrowers in the plant,” she said. “Once they’re in the pipes, we close the access doors, open the airlock and blast them into space. Simple.”

  “Why would they go into the pipes?” asked Sanders. “These things aren’t stupid.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Arthur, shaking her head, “because there are emergency valves in the pipes. Open the airlock doors, and the valves close to stop air escaping.”

  “So we lock them open–” began Kearney.

  “Doesn’t work like that,” interrupted Arthur. “Can’t force the valves to stay open. They’re independently powered and autonomous.”

  “So we wedge the
m open,” said Kearney through gritted teeth, “and we’re good to go.”

  Arthur raised an eyebrow. “It’d have to be done manually, from inside the pipes, and there’s no room for armour.”

  “And we still need to get the damned things into the pipes,” pointed out Sanders.

  Kearney was silent for a moment; then she nodded. “Right. Two of us to fix the pipes, the rest in the plant, and Arthur controlling the airlock. Here’s how we’ll do it.”

  She sketched out her plan, then looked around at the Marines. They weren’t impressed.

  “Whose turn is it to engage in mortal jeopardy?” asked Sanders, looking at Brewis.

  “Yeah,” Brewis said despondently, “that’ll be me.”

  “You have a rota?” said Kearney, morbidly fascinated.

  “Sure,” said Sanders, “saves someone acting the hero all the time.”

  “You guys are unbelievable,” muttered Kearney with a shake of her head. “Ten minutes to suit up, then we go.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Kearney and Brewis were in the airlock looking at the air pipes. They were both wearing the lightest shirts and shorts they could find, with low-calibre pistols and compact flame-throwers strapped across their chests. They’d locked open the valves that emptied into the airlock, but neither was keen to climb into the pipes.

  “We’re ready down here,” said Sanders.

  Kearney acknowledged him and looked around at Arthur, who was standing outside the airlock. The inner door stood open: their escape route, once they’d done the job.

  “Left,” said Kearney as they stood before the pipes, “or right?”

  “Does it matter?” said Brewis.

  “I’ll take the left,” said Kearney, heaving herself into the pipe. Along with her weapons, she carried two stout bars with which to jam open the valves. “See you on the other side.”

  She pulled herself along the pipe, making as little noise as possible. It was dark, lit only by the tiny lamps on her HUD, and cramped. After five metres, it was also stuffy and hot. Arthur had insisted on turning off the fans.

  The vent was just big enough to crawl along on knees and elbows, but it was hard work. It was also filthy with years of dust, debris and rat droppings.

  “You’re coming up on the first valve,” said Arthur, who was monitoring their positions on a data slate. “You see it?”

  “Yeah,” said Brewis as he squeezed past. “Fitting the bar now.”

  “Done mine,” said Kearney.

  “Testing,” said Arthur. “Yup, they’re both jammed.”

  “On we go,” muttered Kearney, forcing herself deeper into the pipe and trying not to think about having to fight her way out.

  They passed the second valve without difficulty, then arrived at the emergency access plate. This was the nasty, dangerous part of the plan, and Kearney was no keener on it than Brewis had been during the briefing.

  “No other option,” muttered Kearney. “In position,” she said. Seconds later, Brewis confirmed his readiness.

  “We’re going in,” said Sanders. The rest of the Marines were suited in full power armour, all armed with flame-throwers and carrying rifles and spare ammo. “We’ve found the Bots. They’re clustered near the access hatches to the pipes.”

  “Oh, good,” said Brewis.

  “Shit, they’re moving,” said Sanders. “Flame away, herd them back. Time for the bait.”

  “Roger,” said Kearney. “Hit it, Arthur.”

  There was a crack as the age-old seals broke on the access hatches, then a squeal of tortured hydraulics as the curved panels, each a metre long and covering half the pipe, were levered up.

  Kearney popped out into the blessedly cool air of the processing plant just as Brewis appeared in the hatch to the other pipe.

  “We’re here,” she said, looking around, flame-thrower in her hand, “but I don’t see–”

  Then an OctoBot dropped onto the pipe three metres from where she sat and turned to stare at her. It was joined by a second, then a third.

  “Shit,” muttered Kearney, not daring to move.

  Then there was a rush of noise and a burst of heat as flames sprayed a little too close for comfort.

  “Shit,” yelled Kearney as more OctoBots appeared. One dropped down into the pipe to get away from the heat, and suddenly Kearney remembered what she was supposed to do. “It’s working,” she said, before diving back into the pipe and crawling for the airlock.

  She glanced back as she heard metallic footsteps in the pipe. They were following, but that no longer seemed like a good thing. She crawled faster, heaving herself through the first valve, then snatching another glance back.

  “Fuck,” she yelled, rolling onto her back and grabbing at the flame-thrower. She aimed it back down the pipe, which now boiled with OctoBots, and pushed against the pipe with her feet to squirm her way to safety. She half sat up, bracing her head against the top of the pipe, and squeezed the trigger. A jet of flame shot down the pipe and rolled over the OctoBots.

  Something screamed, and for a moment Kearney thought it might have been dying OctoBots. Then she realised it was her, and that she’d scorched her inner thighs and calves. The OctoBots were still coming, clearly fearing the flames in the plant more than the flames in the pipe.

  Kearney threw the flamethrower at them and began to push her way along the pipe as fast as she could go. An OctoBot grabbed at her boot and she kicked it away; then she smacked at another as it tried to race along the top of the pipe.

  “Too close,” she muttered, drawing her pistol. She paused, emptied the magazine into the mass of OctoBots, then turned and scrambled along the pipe, heedless of the enemies behind her and desperate only to escape. She could hear them at her heels, then she was at the mouth of the pipe and Arthur was in front of her with a rifle.

  Kearney heaved herself out and flopped to the floor of the airlock as Arthur blazed away, firing the weapon on full auto until the magazine was empty.

  “Go,” screamed Arthur, reloading the weapon and sliding over to look along Brewis’ pipe. “Brewis, move!”

  “Can’t get clear,” said Brewis, and the sound of pistol fire echoed along the pipe. “Argh, they’re all over me.” He screamed again, a sound of pain and fear as the OctoBots swarmed over him and cut into his flesh.

  “Come on,” said Kearney, dragging Arthur across the airlock. “Nothing we can do but finish the plan.”

  Arthur nodded dumbly and stumbled across the airlock as a pair of OctoBots emerged from Kearney’s pipe and skittered across the floor.

  “Go,” screamed Kearney, and they both tumbled through the door into the corridor. Arthur mashed the power button and the airlock doors slammed shut.

  “Status,” said Kearney as she peered in through the airlock windows. OctoBots were piling into the room from both pipes, scores of them.

  “We’re clear,” said Sanders. “No living Bots left here.”

  “Close the access hatches,” said Kearney to Arthur.

  “Roger,” said Arthur, hands shaking so badly she could hardly grip the data slate. She fumbled at it for a few seconds as Kearney watched anxiously; then she nodded. “Done. Airlock?”

  “Do it,” said Kearney with an exhausted nod.

  Arthur punched another button and the outer doors slid open. Air streamed down the pipes, tugging at the teeming pile of OctoBots. For a moment, Kearney thought it wasn’t going to work. Then one of the Bots lost its footing, and bounced and tumbled its way across its fellows and out of the airlock door. Another followed, then five more, and Brewis’ remains went with them, blasted out of the airlock as Arthur restarted the fans and cranked up the airflow.

  Seconds later, the airlock was empty, and Arthur closed the doors.

  “Good work, people,” said Kearney. “Are we clear there, Leman?”

  “No sign of Bots in the processing plant or the pipes. We’re clear,” came the reply.

  “Good job, Kearney,” came Stansfield’s voice over
the radio. “Get your team down to the cloning bays.”

  “Ay, sir,” said Kearney wearily, “on our way.”

  “Brewis’ mind state is secure,” reported Sanders. “He’s in the queue for redeployment.”

  Kearney closed her eyes and leant back against the wall. She didn’t envy Brewis his nightmares, but at least he’d be alive to have them.

  “Guess we’d better get down to the bays, then,” she said, eyes still closed, “so that we’ve got somewhere to redeploy him.”

  6

  Mason and his team arrived at the newly installed cloning bays and stopped to survey the situation. The bays had been assembled in a hurriedly-cleared storage bay, and there were giant access doors at either end.

  “That doesn’t look good,” said Mason as he peered through the inspection windows in one set of doors. The bays were completely standard, as found across Commonwealth space. Behind them were tanks of chemicals, connected by thick pipes to the pods where the clones would be grown and the personalities deployed.

  “We’re at the cloning bay,” said Mason, “and we’ve got a problem. Are you seeing this?”

  “Seeing,” said Stansfield from the bridge, “but not understanding.”

  “The OctoBots have done something weird, sir. They’ve somehow joined together,” said Mason, “and now there’s just one huge Bot sitting over the clone conduits.”

  “Elucidate, please,” said Stansfield.

  “It’s like they all dismantled and used the parts to build a bigger bot,” said Mason. “There’s about twenty of them, so this thing has twenty brains and who knows how many legs. Each leg appears to have connected to the data conduits for the cloning bay. This isn’t looking good.”

  “Vernon, are you into the cloning bays yet?” Stansfield asked.

  “We’re at the second doors. Our teams here are just breaking through,” said Vernon. “These ones were sealed during the fighting. Won’t be long now, will report back soon.”

  “What’s the story, Wilkins?” said Mason. Wilkins, a Marine tech specialist, had linked his data slate to the local cloning pod control network inside the engineering bay, and was running diagnostics to work out what was going on.