by John Migacz
CHAPTER 32
The white padded chair sat in the half-opened silver pod. It had armrests and a small indentation where the head would rest. A light, shining from inside the top of the egg, gave the chair the appearance of a throne. Strikedag Tanner broke the stunned silence with a loud sigh. “Well, I can get a room full of air, and here’s my cot. The other button’s gotta be fakesteak and brew.”
“This is monumental,” said the Commlead, oblivious to the Strikedag’s remark. “Do the Kraken have human form? Are they something more than a robotic race?”
As a little girl, Janelle was frightened into being good by the very real specter of a Kraken boogeyman. The unknown held unimaginable fears, but now as she examined the pod, the enemy became something tangible, something real.
Something that could be defeated.
“More likely this machine does something to the human unlucky enough to be stuck in it,” said the Lancelead, gripping his rifle hard.
“What?” She pulled herself from realizations and had to replay his words before shaking her head. “No. There are no restraining straps. It would have to be a willing participant.”
“Drugs? Brain burn?” suggested the Strikedag. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think sitting in that chair is one of our options, no matter how comfy it looks.” He took a step backwards.
The Commlead examined the chair more closely. “There is a single button on the side of the right armrest. There are no other controls in the pod that I can see.”
“Run by blink technology?” suggested the Lancelead.
“Perhaps,” she answered, “but the external control panel should reflect that. And if blink technology is in use, why the single button on the armrest? No, I believe this is exactly as you see it.”
“Ma’am, I still don’t see sitting in that chair and pushing the button as an option,” said the Strikedag. “Besides, that giant pile of machinery up there is focused on this chair, and it doesn’t seem to be running. I can’t see this much equipment running silently.”
“I agree Strikedag, it’s not running. Perhaps that’s what the chair button does. Anyway, we still have another button on the control panel. Let’s see what it does.” She stepped to the control panel. “Ready, gentlemen?”
The Strikedag glanced at his laser rifle charge and nodded, and the Lancelead gave her a thumbs up.
She pressed the fourth button.
Ten feet in front of the chair, directly next to the Strikedag, a streak of red light flashed and a loud crack sounded in their helmets. The Strikedag was knocked several feet into the air and landed heavily on the floor. The others jumped back from the expanding red glow. The luminescence grew to be roughly door shaped, four feet wide by eight feet high. It began fading in brightness. The Lancelead rushed to the Strikedag, who was just getting to his feet. “Strikedag! Are you all right?”
“Yes Sir, I’m OK. I think it was just my bad luck to be in the same location as that force field when it was activated.”
The red luminescence winked out, replaced by a blue swirling glow.
“Dimgate!” yelled the Lancelead. “Commlead, draw your weapon and go behind the egg. Strikedag, to the left!” The Lancelead knelt on the right side of the egg as the others quickly moved into position. “Prepare for assault!” he shouted, his voice tight. Strikedag Tanner dropped to the floor and trained his laser at the center of the swirling blue gateway.
Commlead Haridep fought the anxiety in her stomach and forced herself to relax. Rationality returned with a few deep breaths and she holstered her laser.
“Hold on, everyone. Stop. Lancelead – think about it. The Kraken have the same dimgate technology that we do. On small dims like this, the gate forms only on the side initiating the dim. This is a gate to somewhere, not from somewhere. We initiated this gate. The force-field was a safety zone created so no one would be near the dimgate when it formed.”
The marines lowered their weapons.
“Ah crsylak,” said the Strikedag, “now my suit has more to recycle.” He racked his weapon and rose from the floor.
“I wonder where it leads,” mused the Commlead as she approached the blue shimmering gate.
The Lancelead shouted, “NO!” and yanked her back from the opening.
“Easy, Lancelead, I was just examining it.” She shook off his arm and glared at him. “I wouldn’t go through it! This is a Kraken dimgate. It probably leads to a Kraken ship or world. That’s not the place I’d want to be. At least not without a few hundred thousand more of your brothers in arms, anyway.”
“Sorry, Ma’am,” he said. “I guess I’m a little tense right now.”
“You’re tense?” said the Strikedag. “I suggest we take a break, eat some food and munch a stress tab. We need to relax. We should have clear heads to make some decisions, now that we know all our options, Sirs.”
“All the options, Strikedag?” said the Lancelead.
“Yes Sir, options. We have only three that I can see. Ship, chair or gate. Can’t see anything else.”
“Strikedag Tanner is correct,” said Commlead Haridep. “Unless you want to add ‘do nothing’ to the list, and that’s not really an option. I vote for the gate if we’re voting,” she added, looking at the Lancelead.
“Sorry again, Ma’am, but I can’t see it as the first option. If we take over the ship we’d have the ship, the core and the gate. That seems to be the first priority, Ma’am.”
“Right you are, Lancelead.” She put her gloved hand on his shoulder next to his shoulder-mounted rocker launcher. “I’m glad you’re here to put some restraint on my over-zealous nature.”
“No problem, Ma’am. The Dagger’s right, though. We need to rest before breaking out of here. We’ve had a twenty-mile hike and have been at a high stress level for a long period. I suggest an hour break before we try to take over the ship. Put your suits on body diagnostics, and let them give you what you need.” The Commlead and Strikedag nodded and the trio sank to the floor.
A battle suit was a self-contained system, made for protection in all environments. It was a marvelous combination of Gless and human technology and Commlead Haridep couldn’t wait to get out of hers.
“How do you marines stand to be in these suits for so long?” asked the Commlead. “The longest I’ve been in a suit was eighteen hours, and once I got it off, I took the longest shower of my life.”
“It’s easy, Ma’am, we’re marines,” said the Strikedag, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Yes, Ma’am,” said the Lancelead. “Part of a marine’s basic training is to live in his suit for a tenday. During that time, he is plunged into several different environments – water, gas, fire, slime and vacuum, all with no sleep. He has to fight in each environment, visually and using instruments.”
“Sounds tough,” she said.
The Strikedag nodded. “Yeah, the ones that can’t make it through ‘hell ten’ get sent home to mama,” he said around a mouthful of green paste.
“How long have you been in the marines, Strikedag?” she asked.
“All my life, Ma’am,” he answered.
“Surely you had some time before the marines,” she laughed. “Where were you born?”
“Excuse me, Ma’am,” said Lancelead Grey, “but Alliance Marine Strikedags aren’t born. The Corps reproduces them using fission, like all bacteria.”
The Strikedag grinned. “How about you, Ma’am?” he asked. “You always been in intelligence?”
“Goodness, no. I’ve always been fascinated by other cultures, the ones developing after the Diaspora and especially the ones that have developed on their own. I wrote a book about the similarity between the Abulax Four colony and the independently evolved people and culture on Sibulos Three. It was a big hit on the blink-nets.” She felt her cheeks flush and she looked down. “Well – in some circles.” She shrugged. “Anyway, someone in H
ALBureau read it and offered me a job in research. I jumped at the chance. I went through Alien Intelligence School and here I am. I’ve been at it less than two years.”
“You must be pretty good to make Commlead in such a short time,” said the Lancelead.
“Well,” she said, “there aren’t a lot of us, and you know the HALBureau. They have to fill their command slots or it makes them nervous.”
“Ma’am, maybe you can answer a question for me,” said the Strikedag. “How come there are so many different worlds with humans on them? I mean, the ones before the colonization period. I heard one fellow spouting a theory that humans had space travel long ago and that’s why they are found throughout the galaxy. His idea was that an interstellar war broke out among humans and everybody was reduced to sticks and stones. What do you think about that theory?”
“No, I doubt it, Strikedag. We have absolutely no evidence of anything like that happening. The Gless have stated, if we have understood them correctly, that they seeded the universe with humans on suitable planets, then left them alone to develop.”
“Don’t you think we should bring these underdeveloped planets up to our level of technology and use them to fight in the Kraken war?” asked Lancelead Grey.
“No, I totally agree with Alliance policy on that. Tossing technology at an underdeveloped planet is like giving a comp-gun to a baby. The culture needs time to come to a social level where they can handle it. It’s safer for them, and safer for us. Can you imagine a culture focused on conquest given dimgates and lasers? They need to develop on their own.” She took a sip of water from the tube inside her helmet. “We do keep tabs on them though. Any underdeveloped planets are under the observance of the Dieya Corps.”
The Strikedag nodded. “Yeah, ran across a dieya once… But tell me, why do the Kraken pound a planet to slag just to make sure all the humans are dead, but ignore planets with no human lifeforms?” The Strikedag spread his hands. “Why do the Kraken hate us? I can’t see the logic, nor the Gless not stepping in. They helped us out two-hundred-fifty years ago when it looked like the Kraken would remove us from the universe and then they just stepped aside.”
“No one knows why the Kraken have set out to exterminate us,” she said. “The Gless alluded to the reasons but we haven’t figured it out.”
“What do you think the Gless’ motivations are?” asked the Lancelead.
The Commlead smiled. “We can barely communicate with the Gless. In the vids I’ve seen, they appear as a glowing light with bright, gaseous wings. Stepping down a dimension must be uncomfortable for them. They never stay long. Trying to get them to give us their social history, which drives motives, would be difficult and we probably wouldn’t understand their reasons anyway. The Gless are not just some technologically advanced humans. That’s the first thing you learn when studying them. You simply cannot apply any human emotions, goals or ideals to their actions. And if you do attribute one of their actions to a human motivation, you will invariably be wrong.”
“Sounds remarkably like my mother-in-law,” said the Lancelead with a grimace.
“You’re contracted, Lancelead?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said and smiled. “Just after I entered the Corps.” He stared into the distance for a second, then blinked twice.
A green light appeared on the Commlead’s HUD screen. She blink activated it and a picture displayed in her eye of the Lancelead in dress uniform and a young woman in the bridal outfit of a Quaralis native. “Ah, I see. She’s beautiful.”
The Strikedag, who had also received the image, nodded.
“Do you also come from the Quaralis system, Lancelead?” she asked.
“Thank you, Ma’am. Yes, born and raised. Childhood sweethearts. We’ve been married for three years now,” he said smiling, obviously looking at the same picture. “You, Ma’am? Are you contracted?”
“Me? Goodness, no. I’ve never had the time or inclination. How about you, Strikedag?”
The Strikedag snorted and rolled his eyes upward in thought. “Well, I’ve been contracted a bunch of times over the last twenty years. In fact, now that you mention it, I think I still might be contracted on the Condar system to a girl I met when I was stationed there. It just didn’t work out.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m not sure how long the contract was.” He stared off into space for a second and blinked rapidly. “Yep, still contracted.” His eyes closed. “I should do something about that,” he said pensively.
“Gentlemen,” said the Commlead, “we might be together for a while. How about we address each other using our names instead of rank, at least for informal discussions such as this. My first name is Janelle.” She looked expectantly at each of them.
“It’s not the Marine’s way, Ma’am,” said the Lancelead. He pursed his lips and looked to the Strikedag. “But under the circumstances…” He shrugged. “I’m Bobek, usually called Bo.”
“Rorramul,” said the Strikedag. “Call me Rory.”
“Well,” said the Lancelead, blinking up his chronometer. “Are we ready to take over this ship?”
The Strikedag nodded but fear filled Janelle and she couldn’t look him in the eye.
The Lancelead studied her a moment. “Commlead, did I hear you say that you have no combat experience?”
“Correct, Lancelead, I don’t. But I do hold a gold ring in Denwabi. I find it good exercise.”
The Lancelead nodded to her with grudging respect. A person had to be very good to earn a gold Denwabi ring.
“No offense Ma’am,” said the Strikedag, “but don’t try to use any martial arts on a battle droid. They have no pressure points. If you can’t blast it to bits, run.”
“Don’t worry Strikedag, I’m ready to run now.”
The Lancelead held up a hand. “You did fine with the D-twenty-nines. You’ll do fine here.” He looked at the Strikedag. “How about cutting us a way out of here?”
“Yes, Sir. I think I’ll cut the hole opposite from the side we came in on.”
The Lancelead nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Commlead Haridep watched the bright laser light cutting through the last several inches of the panel. Her dread increased the closer it came to completion with the laser like a burning fuse that would explode her into something horrible. Her imagination crowded the unknown beyond the panel with every holovid monster that had ever frightened her as a child.
The Strikedag glanced up. “Almost through, Sir.” The blue glow from the cutting laser flickered on his face. “The atmosphere in this room has leaked out. It’s all vacuum on the other side, so we shouldn’t have any problem going out.”
“Right, Strikedag. Keep at it, and be ready when the panel goes down. Commlead, ready your weapon and stand over here,” said the Lancelead. He chuckled. “I want us all on the same side of the opening.”
The Strikedag flicked off his laser and the blue light faded. The panel hung by a thin strand of metal. At the Lancelead’s nod, the Strikedag kicked the panel down and leaped sideways. He squatted, gave a quick peek around the edge and pulled back. “Dim lights. No movement. Wide, flat, open area.” He stood and repeated his motion, taking a longer look. “Nothing, Sir. It looks empty.”
The Lancelead nodded and gave an order as old as war. “Then let’s go. Do you want to live forever?”
The Strikedag answered with the typical grunt’s response. “Yes. Yes, Sir, I do.” He leaped through, moving to the left of the opening.
The Lancelead followed, moved to the right and knelt on one knee. He glanced at his wrist-readout. “No movement, and no heat spots. Commlead, come out and stay five meters behind me, weapon on safe.”
Commlead Haridep’s stomach churned with conflicting emotions made worse by lunch from a tube. She was anxious to see inside a Kraken ship, but the possibility of impending combat was making her queasy.
<
br /> Inhaling deeply, she stepped through the opening into a vast empty area. The size of the Dreadnought’s bay was unbelievable. It easily could have held several Cross cores. Feeling like an ant about to be squashed, she glanced up fearfully. In such a large area, the lack of movement and the vacuum silence felt surreal.
The docking bay’s dim lighting came from glowing panels, evenly spaced in the ceiling and walls. She guessed the far bulkhead to be about a half-mile away. One-hundred-foot-wide ramps lined both sides of the bay leading from the floor of the bay to one-third of the way up the far bulkhead wall.
“Strikedag,” said the Lancelead, “no sense using stealth. Let’s get out of this open area, pronto.”
“Aye aye, Sir. Right ramp?”
“Yes. Go.”
They trotted easily in the bay’s less-than-one gee. They reached the top without incident, but the Commlead still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was a bug in a giant’s playroom.
The Strikedag looked down over the edge of the ramp. “It looks like there is a giant door at floor level. They probably move the larger stuff through there at null gravity and only use these little ramps for smaller stuff when the gravity pods are on.”
“These are little ramps, Strikedag?” asked the Commlead.
“Relative size, Ma’am, relative. The Kraken never seem to do anything small.”
The ramps ended at double doors that were the same width as the ramps and about fifty feet high.
The Strikedag examined the side wall. “Sir. There is a smaller access door over here.” He knelt down and opened his tool kit. “It has an electronic interface. This passageway is probably used only by repair droids.”
“Can you bypass the controls?” asked the Commlead.
The hatch door suddenly slid open. “Yes, Ma’am.”
The Lancelead gestured down the hall. “As before – Strikedag in the lead.” They entered the passageway.
After the docking bay, Commlead Haridep felt claustrophobic in this dimly lit, eight-foot square, featureless corridor. It ran long and straight, and vanished into the distance.
“Let’s move quickly down this hall,” said the Lancelead. “We’ll check any doors off the passageway, but this is a real bad place to be caught in a firefight,”
The Strikedag was already moving rapidly down the hall but picked up his pace. Stopping at a side door one-hundred yards down the corridor, he knelt and reached into his tool kit. He had the door opened by the time the others reached him. They entered and stood on a catwalk overlooking a massive area filled with dozens of large stacked bins. The Strikedag held up his arm and clenched a fist. The Lancelead froze, as did the Commlead.
“Motion on the floor,” whispered the Strikedag, gesturing slowly downward with one finger.
A half-dozen large lifting droids were on the floor moving open metal crates into bins. Another droid rolled toward the main doorway carrying a metal crate. Its load gave off a shiny glint as the droid left.
“Raw materials department,” said the Strikedag. “That one we saw was carrying an armload of gold. They must manufacture everything they need, getting the raw materials from asteroids. Not much we can do here, Sir.”
“Copy that, Strikedag. Let’s return to the passageway.”
They traveled about a quarter of a mile down the access corridor and found five more storage compartments, each void of activity. The sixth doorway opened to a larger hallway that ran perpendicular to the corridor.
“Good,” said the Lancelead. “Hopefully this will take us to the center of the ship.”
They were five-hundred feet into the larger corridor when the Strikedag found an electronic interface in the floor near the right wall. “I can’t see any door frame here, Sir. I can’t tell whether it opens a panel or does something else.”
“Give it a try.”
The Strikedag knelt, pried off the panel, and got to work.
Without warning, a two-hundred-foot section of the side wall slid open, leaving them exposed on a narrow balcony overlooking a cavernous room. Everyone froze.
Flashing, silver motion filled the room. Parallel rails running from floor to ceiling stretched out into the distance. Robot arms attached to the rails moved with jerky assembly line movements. The scene resembled a blurring silver wall of motion in the distance. Laser welders flashed from centipede arms inside compartments and droids placed components into other components in a mad whirl of motion.
The Commlead recognized a component on the nearest assembly line as a missile guidance system. Most of the other constructions were unfathomable.
“Don’t move,” she said. “I don’t think they’ve noticed us.” As the words left her mouth and with perfect precision, every robot in the room ceased its movement.
“They have now,” said the Strikedag.
“Remain still,” said the Commlead. “Perhaps this is a planned shutdown.”
“Motion on the far side catwalk,” said the Strikedag. Something disappeared behind a large assembly section about two hundred feet away. They froze until it reappeared.
“Battle droids!” yelled the Lancelead. “Back! Back!” Laser fire struck the wall behind them and they scrambled toward the outer hallway. Strikedag Tanner flicked an EMP device from his belt, then lobbed an anti-personnel grenade down onto the assembly room floor. The APG exploded, tossing out small BB-sized high explosives that in turn exploded when they hit something solid. The Strikedag didn’t wait around for the spectacular cascading effect. He ran for the door.
Lancelead Grey’s long legs got him to the hallway first and he stepped sideways to cover the others’ retreat. He launched a motion-seeking missile from his shoulder harness in the direction of the battle droids. As the others went through the door, he turned and followed.
The Strikedag was already fixing a detonation charge to the door. “Run!” he yelled. “We’ve got to slow them up. Go! I’ll be right behind you!”
The officers ran down the long hallway. Fear lent speed to Commlead Haridep’s steps and she matched the Lancelead stride for stride. She glanced back at the Strikedag; he was one-hundred yards behind them and running flat out.
Quick breaths echoed in her helmet. She ran on. The access door was steps away when the charge went off. The blast was recognizable only as a flash of light and a vibration in the floor.
The two officers hurried through the bay access door and took up defensive positions. Smoke and twisted debris filled the hallway behind the Strikedag, and he was gripping his upper arm and running slowly. The image of Blade Redrick’s death flashed through Janelle’s mind, but she forced it away.
“Go! Try the chair!” yelled the Lancelead. “You should have a few moments. The Strikedag and I will be there as fast as we can.” The Lancelead grabbed her arm. “Wait for us before trying the dimgate unless we don’t make it.”
She hesitated and he shoved her toward the core. He began setting up demolition charges on the access door. The Commlead ran down the ramp as fast as she could. Reaching the bay floor she glanced back and saw the Strikedag burst through the door and collapse. She ran on, fighting her fear by focusing on the chair.
The chair. What would it do? When she reached the core opening, she turned and saw the Lancelead working on the Strikedag’s arm. Hoping that he wasn’t badly hurt she ducked through the hole and ran across the open floor to the egg.
The Strikedag cursed every time he had breath to do it. A piece of shrapnel had slashed his arm. The wound didn’t bother him too much. His battle suit had taken care of the laceration, but the hole in his suit was too big for the autosealer to fix. He didn’t mind dying – everyone goes sometime – but dying in a vacuum was nasty business.
The Lancelead finished patching the Strikedag’s suit and checked the external readouts. He gave a thumbs up then glanced down the wreckage-strewn hallway. “You bought u
s some time.” He helped the Strikedag to his feet and propelled him down the ramp. As they ran, Lancelead Grey tossed thumb-sized proximity mines behind him.
They had reached the bottom of the ramp when a laser beam lanced past their heads. The Strikedag yelled, “Blow the door. Blow the – ” The explosion sent particles flying past them, several bouncing off their battle suits. He glanced back at the doorway. It had collapsed. They ran for the core.
Commlead Haridep approached the egg with mounting anxiety. The chair was as they had left it, and the glowing blue gateway still active. She looked up at the mass of machinery and was again awed – what would happen to the person pushing that button?
Should she sit down, then push the button? No, she thought, that’s not cautionary. Reaching in, she pushed the button on the chair. She felt a click under her fingers and stepped back. Nothing. She waited for a moment more. Still nothing. “Here goes,” she mumbled, and climbed up into the chair. Immediately, she felt like a usurper, sitting on a ruler’s throne. She held her breath and pushed the button under her finger, feeling it click.
Nothing.
She waited several seconds before pushing it a third time.
Nothing. She sat in the chair and clicked the button as rapidly as she could.
The Lancelead and Strikedag bolted through the opening and ran to join her.
“Push it yet?” asked the Lancelead.
“Yes,” she said, climbing off the chair. “Nothing happened. I had such grand illusions…” She glanced up at the massive machinery, then looked at the Strikedag. “How’s the arm?”
“Suit medic’s working on it – no problems.”
A flash of light from the opening caught their attention.
“Proximity mine,” said the Strikedag. “They’re through the access hatch. I guess we defend or try the gate.”
“Strikedag,” said the Lancelead, “go through the gate and set up a perimeter on the other side if you can. The Commlead will follow you in twenty seconds.”
“Sir, you gonna close the gate?” asked the Strikedag.
“You got it, Strikedag. No one will follow from here.”
The Commlead felt her intestines turn to water. “Lancelead! You’re not staying behind to close the gate, are you?”
The Lancelead arched an eyebrow. “What? Oh, no. Nothing so heroic, Ma’am. I’m going to set a timer to blow this place to hell after I jump.”
She looked up, horrified to think of this mass of incredible machinery as a pile of twisted wreckage. Her team could spend years studying this device. Her heart tightened as she realized that her whole team was dead. She nodded. “Blow it to hell, Lancelead.”
Another flash of light filled the opening.
“You’d better move Strikedag. Dim and die!”
“Aye aye, Sir. Dim and die.” Strikedag Tanner leaped through the dimgate. For one second he was outlined in a flash of blue, then he was gone.
The Lancelead set two timers on the detonation boxes. He put a small charge on the control panel that would cut off the gate before the larger charge destroyed the chair and anything else in the room. He didn’t want any shrapnel following him through the gate. “Time for you to go, Ma’am. Have your weapon ready but on safe. Good luck, Ma’am.”
Commlead Haridep stepped through the gate and vanished. The Lancelead activated the timers just as a battle droid appeared at the hole. He launched a rocket at the droid, then leaped.