by Rob Dearsley
Flashlights flashed through the cockpit, killing Arland’s night vision. She winced away from the light, throwing up a hand to shield her eyes. Johannsen groaned, finally stirring.
Stars. Arland leaned back closing her eyes. “You had me worried for a moment there.”
The pilot coughed. “Could have been worse. Was a good landing given the circumstances.”
Arland let out a painful bark of laughter, clutching her bruised side. “Good?”
“Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.”
“Don’t count your luck yet.” She helped Johannsen out of the harness.
A man poked his head through the open door to the rear compartment. “Everyone alive up front?”
“Just about,” Arland called up to him. “Can you give us a hand?”
He leaned through the doorway, reaching down to help Johannsen up. Wincing in pain as she went, the slim pilot climbed up and into the aft compartment. Arland followed close behind, ignoring the soreness in her shoulders.
Above them, inside the Feynman, gunfire echoed. Mostly the high chatter of assault rifles, accompanied by the occasional boom of a shotgun.
Arland climbed through the aft compartment to the open top-hatch. The sounds of battle increased, seeming to come from all sides. Arland’s heart tripped, her hands twitching. The desire to be armed an almost physical compulsion. She pulled herself down into the open airlock, tumbling down into the capital ship’s gravity.
The troops from the shuttle fanned out, flashlights, emergency flares, work lights even the dull glow of air testers pushed back the shadow. There was a storeroom just over the horizon where they could get floodlights.
Stars. The Shadow-forms had given up all pretence of a humanoid appearance, hulking deformed masses of shadow moved through the edge of the room. Arms, as thick as a man’s waste, swiped at the troopers. The ship safe rounds in the SDF rifles did little against the massive brutes.
“Down.” Arland dropped on instinct, throwing herself behind a console.
The creature, shadow spilling from the rolling black of its form, climbed up onto the open airlock, ripping a trooper from his feet and crushing him in its grip before tossing the broken body aside.
Arland’s mind stalled. Unable to take in the immense strength and casual destructions. How? The world around her fell away, becoming distant, muted. Everything narrowed down to her and the looming Shadow-from. It raised its massive arms, the thicker of the two arms, bigger than Arland’s whole body.
She pushed back away from it or thought she did. The creature just grew bigger and bigger until it filled her view, became her whole world. Stars help her, she was lost. The darkness engulfing her.
“Arland!” Johannsen’s voice seemed to come from very far away like she was calling to Arland across an impossible distance. She hoped the pilot managed to get away from this creature. She wouldn’t wish this death on anyone.
A shooting star fell through the darkness, impacting on the creature in flash of blinding light. The Darkness retreated and Arland’s world snapped back into focus with a constant clatter of gunfire and the sound of running footsteps
Johannsen snapped the flair gun closed and fired a second shot into the Shadow-form. The shadows breaking apart around the creature. The Shadow-form roared and pushed up through the airlock toward Johannsen.
Damn it, no! Arland couldn’t let that, that thing attack Johannsen. She cast about for a weapon, something, anything that would help.
Arland turned away. She didn’t want to see that, didn’t want to be reminded what these Shadow-forms actually were. Stars damn this darkness.
A familiar whickering sound buzzed overhead and the shadow-form’s back exploded in a blinding flash. Another anti-turned round whipped past hitting the shadow-form’s twisted arm, blowing it clean off.
Light flooded the hallway. Arland rolled over to see men, mostly engineers advancing down the hallway armed with the bulky coil-guns. More shots cut into the shadow-form, ripping it into disturbingly human pieces. Arland grimaced and climbed up into the damaged airlock and helped Johannsen down.
The engineers spread out, ripping into the shadow forms with light and guns.
“Thanks for the save. You good?” she asked Johannsen.
“I’ll live, I’m just glad it worked.” Johannsen shot her smile.
“Sorry we were late, sir,” said the lead engineer, an Ensign Chandler according to his uniform. “Jones here took his time modifying the flechette rounds.”
“The magnesium flares worked, didn’t they?” a burly man replied.
“Got one of those for me?” Arland asked and one of the others passed her one of the coil-guns. “We need to move out, we’re to hook up with the Folly’s contingent in the substation.”
They started off fighting back the gloom with their floodlights, their weapons up and ready for more trouble.
◊◊
Hale and Luc moved through the twilight of the corridors, weapons up and ready, a pair of SDF techs just behind them with compact modern rifles and heavy-duty floodlights taken from the Folly. Ellis and Fyffe brought up the rear.
Movement to her right. Hale fired, the heavy machine gun rounds ripping into the bulkhead. They’d found an armoury shortly after landing and on Niels’s instructions ‘hadn’t spared the horses’.
“Right at the next intersection,” one of the techs said.
Hale nodded. It was too damn quiet. She’d expected them to be swamped with Shadow-forms and writhing darkness. Where the heck was the Darkness? So far nothing more than glimpses of movement.
Luc moved up alongside her. “I don’t like this.”
“Me either, let’s just get this done.”
They lapsed back into tense silence as they reached the next intersection. Hale peered around the corner; Luc stacked up behind her ready to move. The corridor ahead of them was dark and empty. Hale focused, listening, straining her senses for any signs of the trouble she knew was coming.
Nothing, damn it.
They moved out of the intersection, the two techs falling in behind them. Fyffe and Ellis keeping the techs protected between them.
“Stars, what’s that?” Luc’s voice drew Hale’s attention.
Oh crap. Two suits of the heavy power assist armour stepped out into the hallway facing them, weapons in their hands.
The floodlights glinted off the reinforced metal of the arms and legs and the mirrored visors. The swirling darkness within shielded from the harsh light. As one the armours raised their guns.
“Get down!” Hale yelled, grabbing one of the techs and pulling him around behind her. Bullets ripped past. Pain lanced through Hale's arm as she ducked behind a support stanchion. She clamped a hand over her wounded arm, blood seeping between her fingers.
The tech looked at her wide-eyed. “A-are you okay?”
She ignored the question; he was in shock. He probably hadn’t seen combat; he was young enough to have been drafted after the war. “Don’t worry.”
She grabbed up her rifle from where it hung across her chest and opened fire. Over the other side of the hallway, Luc huddled into a doorway. Good, he looked unharmed.
The second tech lay crumpled in a spreading pool of blood. Dead. Damn, he looked as young as the boy huddled behind her. As green as they came, but now he was dead.
She came around the stanchion with a growl of frustration and opened fire. The rifle roared, the heavy rounds slamming into the armour in a rain of spark and clatter of steel and ceramic.
The armour suits recoiled against the force of the sudden attack and Luc took advantage of the reprieve, jumping up, his modern rifle chattering, bullets sparking off the armour’s ceramic strike plates. One of the armour suits brought its weapon up, tracking Luc.
Crap, no. Hale swung her gun, sighting in on the armour's shoulder joint. There was a quick release mechanism there. She squeezed the trigger.
Pain tore through Hale’s arm and chest, ripping a cry of p
ain from her. Hale tumbled to the deck, her shot going wide, the gun slipping from her numb hands. Damn, the other armour had recovered quicker than she thought. Angels it hurt. Her chest hitched as she tried to breathe, more pain.
Hands clamped around her shoulders, pulling her back. She rolled her head to see the tech struggling to drag her across the rough deck plating. Luc huddled back into his doorway, bleeding from a leg wound. At least he’d made it.
“Miss Hale?” The tech knelt down next to her, crowding back into the wall, away from the gunfire. “Miss Hale, what do we do?”
She coughed, blood flecking her hands. Her wounds were healing, faster than any normal human thanks to her military grade bio-engineering, but still not fast enough. She reached out, fingers searching for her dropped gun.
Bullets pinged off the deck plating and she yanked her hand back, her fingers stinging even though she hadn’t been hit. Luc popped out, sending a quick burst of rifle fire before ducking back into cover. More bullets slammed into the bulkhead around him.
Her com cracked, and Niels’ voice filtered through her earpiece. “Hale, Luc? What’s going on? We need those lights on now? We’re losing ground without them.”
Hale reached up and tapped her com open. “We’re pinned down.”
“Where?” Niels asked.
Hale looked down the hallway, past the armoured Shadow-forms. The substation was right there, achingly close. They just needed to get past the damn armour.
“Nearly there,” she replied.
Gunfire sounded over the com-link. “Make it fast, or we’re done.”
Bullets slammed into the stanchion, the force of the impact reverberating through Hale. That was going to be easier said than done.
Damn it all to hell. Hale wasn’t going out like this, cowering in the dark.
Twenty-Nine
(SDF Feynman)
Hale pushed back the pain of her wounds to stand, leaning heavily against the stanchion. More bullets ripped into the walls and deck around her. The armoured shadow-forms were pretty bad shots, but their accuracy was improving all the time.
Light flashed from the other end of the hallway. Hale was about to shout a warning when flechette rounds exploded against the back of the shadow-forms, hard-shell splintering under the onslaught. One of the armours went down, blasted apart by multiple flechette impacts.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Hale darted around the stanchion, snatching up her gun as she went, and tackled the other armour with enough force to bend the power assist frame. Motors wined and clicked as it tried to bring its gun inline.
Her anger and frustration lending her strength, Hale slammed the butt of her rifle down on its arm. The heavy power assist frame buckled, and ceramic and graphene hard-shell shattering under the force of the impact. Before it could react, she flipped the rifle around, pressed the muzzle into its neck and fired.
Heavy, armour piercing rounds, ripped through the armour and shattering the control module. The power-assist frame locked beneath her.
A second later, men were all around her, floodlight filling the hallway, the coil-guns pointed at the armour.
A voice came from above Hale. “Stars, that was impressive.”
“Arland?” Hale looked up to see the young woman offering her hand. “We need to move.”
Without another word, Arland helped her up. The rest of her team, all wearing the SDF engineering, orange jumpsuits, rushed past them into the substation. Leaving the two women in the twilight gloom of the hallway.
They’d done it.
◊◊
Something pinged in the back of Dannage’s mind. He cocked his head, concentrating, trying to bring it into focus.
Oh Stars, no. the missiles.
No, Loki’s cry flooded his mind, whiting out his senses for a moment. When he could feel again, he was on his knees. Or floating in space, Terra Prime hanging in front of him.
With an effort, he moved around the planet to where the Feynman orbited. Small ships rose from the night side toward the missiles. He recognised the Terran drone ships at the same time as the official designations and statuses filtered into his mind from the scanners.
A moment later they opened fire on the missiles. The drones were at extreme range, but one of the missiles winked out. Destroyed.
No. Stars damn it, no. The missiles, their last chance. Damn it. It was all his fault. He should have fired them straight away.
All his fault. The words tumbled through his mind. Maybe it was Loki’s influence, or maybe his own regret. He couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter anyway. It was his fault.
He could still save them, still end this. He had to damn it.
The world melted around him, evaporating away into wisps of nothingness. The darkness of eternal night, replaced by the stark brilliance of the Loki’s bridge.
“Get me a damn com-link, right now.” He marched toward the flight controls. It was way past time for Loki to stand and fight. Properly fight again, stand up against the forces that threatened to wipe humanity – his children – from existence. “You’re going to help me get my damn people out of here.”
He’d expected Loki’s voice to float into his thoughts. But he was left with just the regular hums and groans of the ship.
Power surged to the engines, the flight console springing to life as he slipped into the chair. The space-frame groaned and moaned as, after thousands of years of inactivity, the ship shifted back into life.
He could feel the smaller debris bouncing off the hull, being pushed aside by the long lines of the Terran cruiser. He pushed the engines up to full power, shoving the shattered husks of Terran ships aside as he started his charge toward the Feynman and the darkness.
Tight band coms active. We’ll be in weapons range in two minutes.
“Thanks.” Dannage glanced up, treating the ship’s consciousness the same way he did Jax back on the Folly.
Stars he missed them. Missed the ship too. It would be good to get back to it. Back to something resembling normal. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he was back there. Luc to his right, Arland just behind him, close enough he could catch the scent of her perfume if he concentrated.
But he wasn’t in the Folly. This was a warship, built to destroy. “Arm the weapons.”
They were clear of the debris field and picking up speed now. Time to see what this ship could do.
He punched the main engines, sending the massive ship leaping forward into a wide ark. His fingers flicked across the console like second nature. Some small part in the back of his mind remembered hating flying anything other than a stick control. But the Loki’s controls felt as natural as the Folly, as easy as breathing.
He sent the ship into a tight role, avoiding another wreck. She was much bigger than the Folly, it made her sluggish on the turn. Power surged to the thrusters, turning the ships mass into nothing. He lightened his touch on the controls. As the ship practically danced around the space elevator.
We are in coms range.
“Get me a link to someone on that ship.”
◊◊
Niels ducked into a doorway to reload his rifle before returning to the firing line. Engineers set up tripod-rigged floodlights at intervals, pushing back the darkness and the shadow-forms. They were winning for now, but Niels could feel the pressure building on their lines. The shadow-forms coming at them were bigger. Hunched, troll like forms that took an increasing toll on their dwindling resources.
If Hale and Luc’s team didn’t get the damn light on, they were done for. He checked the timeline on his wrist-mounted flex. Twenty-seven minutes left.
Beside him, Valentine tossed out a pair of stun grenades, shredding the darkness around one of the bigger shadow-forms. Twisted human remains tumbled to the deck under a hail of gunfire.
He tapped his com, “Hale, Luc, where are my lights?”
No reply. Stars, what if they’d-
No. He wouldn’t think like that. He wasn’t going to
let his people die out here. No more people were going to die on this damn mission. He could almost make out the bulkhead cut-off for Hull One. Nearly there.
Shadows gathered, more of the creatures forming from the rolling darkness, solidifying in front of them, already charging them. From behind them, marines fired flare guns and threw stun grenades, but the charge hit them and all Niels could do was brace for the end. Maybe Jenna and the others could still get home.
Light burst through the compartment, burning the shadow forms. For a moment Niels was in the eye of a whirlwind of embers. Something wet and sticky hit him and bounced to the floor.
Armed men, most in orange jumpsuits, rush past him pouring fire through the bulkheads, some even using the anti-Turned rifles as the doors closed, locking off Hull One.
Niels took a breath, lowered his gun and tapped his com. “Hull One is locked. Good job, Hale.”
“Thank you.” Hale’s tinny voice came through his earpiece. “We’ve hooked up with Arland’s team, we’re heading for the command centre.”
“Copy that. See you there.”
Leaving a squad of men and a couple of tripod mounted lighting rigs to cover the bulkhead, Niels and Valentine hurried back to the main engineering compartment and the control centre.
Troopers moved through the command centre, setting up work lights to bleach out even the smallest shadows. They weren’t taking any chances.
Niels and Valentine marched over to the main console. There was no sign of Arland and Hale yet.
“Sir,” a technician looked up from the console. “I have an incoming transmission. It’s Captain Dannage.”
Niels moved to the console. Dannage looked up at him from the small com screen. He looked older than the last time Niels had seen him. More worn.
“Niels. Good. We don’t have much time.”
“I know.” He checked the time on his flex. “Twenty-one minutes to impact. Can you get over here in time?”
“I’m not worried about that right now. The Entropic Force, err, thing that’s been attacking us, it’s taken control of the Terran drones, they've already destroyed one missile and they’re heading for you.”