“Pretty lame attempt,” Xander said, pointing at the slow, straightforward attempts of the small craft to avoid the missiles. All 10 struck within a fraction of a second of each other, their conventional fragmentation warheads obliterating the targets.
“Now that’s more like it,” Alexis said.
“Multiple hits on shields,” Glick said. “Lots!”
“Oh, they’re pissed,” Paka said.
“How’s that evasive action coming?” Alexis said.
“Limited in available power,” Chug reminded his captain.
“Firing on the big ship,” Xander said. This time five of Pegasus’ eight lasers fired at once, and at roughly the same point on the ship. It looked like the lasers hit a refractory target, as bits of laser light reflected in all directions for an instant, then they stopped, and the side of the strange alien vessel exploded.
“Penetration,” Flipper confirmed. A series of secondary explosions rippled across the hull.
“Not much in the way of armoring,” Paka noted.
“Maybe it’s not a warship,” Alexis said. “Can we fire again?”
“One more burst and the batteries are toast,” Xander said.
“Do it, same target.”
“Enemy is changing bearings,” Flipper said. The three smaller ships were turning around, as was the bigger one, albeit much slower. As they watched, another explosion bloomed in an area they hadn’t even hit. “I think we really messed up that big boy.”
“Fire as ordered?” Xander asked.
“Negative,” Alexis said. Paka looked at her curiously, and she held up a placating hand. “It doesn’t do us any good to rub their noses in it.”
“They started it,” Paka reminded her.
“And we finished it,” Alexis said.
“Hyperspace shunts are charged,” Long reported.
“Take us back to Golara,” Alexis told Ghost, and Pegasus returned to normal space.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-One
Deck Five, Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Hyperspace
“Go!” Lieutenant Colonel Walker ordered, and the combined force of Bert’s Bees and Golden Horde surged forward. After their first solid rest in over a week, and with CASPers both refueled and rearmed, the Bees led the attack.
Walker had also brought a couple of missile packs in the ammunition reload, and the two troopers with them on their shoulders led the assault, firing as they went. Missiles roared down the ramp to the Sixth Deck, shredding the robots hiding next to the entryway. The six remaining Bees dove over the railing, jets on maximum, and flew down to the enemy’s position. Two more of the robots were around the corner, and Walker saw one of the troopers’ laser shields flash open. A second trooper was slower…and he took three hits. Uncontrolled, the suit’s momentum slammed it into a bulkhead, and it rebounded slowly.
The remaining Bees finished off the robots, and led the charge down the ramp to the next level. They had 10 more to go to get to the CIC.
* * *
Deck Twenty-Four, Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Hyperspace
Well, that’s odd, Sato thought as five of the modified maintenance bots flew past him.
“Is something going on that I should be aware of?” he asked over the comm system.
“Yeah,” Walker replied. He grunted as if he were exerting himself. “We’re making a play to get to the CIC to try to stop this crazy thing. How much further back is the manufactory from the CIC?”
“The CIC is on Deck Sixteen, but the manufactory is all the way aft on Deck Twenty-Five,” Sato commed. “You should probably know that I just saw a group of five bots headed in your direction.”
“Not…surprised,” Walker replied. “Lots of the…damned things here. Can you turn them off or destroy the manufactory, or something?”
“I couldn’t before, but I will attempt it.” Sato went to the nearest terminal. “Report number of maintenance robots,” he typed.
“MAINTENANCE ROBOT INVENTORY 97.” Sato nodded to himself. The ship had been keeping it at a constant 119 for days; the soldiers were making an impact.
“Report current protocol.”
“INTRUDER ASSAULT.” That wasn’t so good. The ship had gone from containment to assault. The troops had obviously become a big enough problem the ship had decided it needed to terminate them.
“Report maximum number of maintenance robots.”
“MAXIMUM NUMBER 265 USING CURRENT PROTOCOL.”
Two bots passed him, going in the opposite direction. Both were carrying pieces of what looked to be a defensive laser mount. Why would they be taking that aft? Oh…they were going in the direction of the manufactory, he realized. If the ship was going to increase the bot population to 265, it was going to need more raw material.
“Whatever you are doing,” he commed, “you may want to hurry. It looks like the ship has gone to its maximum bot production protocol.”
“Any luck turning it off?”
“Not yet,” Sato replied. “Still working.”
He typed into the computer. “Report maintenance robot alternate protocols.”
“NONE.”
Uh oh. “Terminate maintenance robot production.” The screen remained blank. “New maintenance robot protocol.” The screen stayed blank. He went through every combination and permutation of commands he could think of to halt production or change the bots’ protocols; all were met with indifference by the computer. It had determined the soldiers needed to be destroyed, and that was what it was going to do.
Getting it to change its mind wasn’t an option.
He went aft to Deck Twenty-Five to look at the manufactory. He’d been there before, and there had been two robot guards on duty. There still were…along with two others in the passageway. As he watched, the door opened and another bot came out. A minute and a half later, another came out. When the fifth one joined the mini-squad of bots another minute and a half later, the five jetted off down the passageway. He watched for another 10 minutes as the process repeated. The only difference was two more loads of raw materials entered the manufactory. Wondering what would happen, he edged toward the door.
When he was approximately three meters away, the robots on guard duty slid over to block the door, and their rifles rotated to track him. He instantly stepped back from the portal, and the robots returned to their earlier positions. Interesting. That hadn’t happened before when he’d been by here—the robots had actually let him into the facility then. There must be an increase in defensive status that came with the protocol change to Intruder Assault. He would have to find another way. He didn’t think he could take out both before they killed him, and there was no telling how many defenders were inside the manufactory space with the new defensive protocol in place.
* * *
Deck Nineteen, Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Hyperspace
“Heavy resistance up ahead,” Corporal Calderon called.
“Hold what you’ve got,” Walker said. “I’m coming to take a look.” He moved forward to the edge of the ramp and almost had the top of his suit taken off by a heavier-than-normal laser bolt. “What the fuck was that?” he asked.
“The bots set up some sort of big ass laser down on Deck Twenty, and they’ve fortified that position,” Sergeant Enkh said. “All of the fighting so far appears to have been a delaying action to allow them to get that set up. If we have to go over the rails to get down to Twenty, we’re going to lose some folks.”
“Stand by.” Walker switched to his comm system. “Any luck with turning off the manufactory, Sato?”
“No, it doesn’t appear possible at the moment. The ship has upgraded its defensive status, and I’m now locked out of the manufactory. I tried to reprogram it, but the ship isn’t accepting any of my input. They’re sending lots of raw material in there to make more robots, too; I just saw one of the ship’s defensive lasers go by.”
“Well, I don’t know that we’re going to be able to stop it. They have some pretty good d
efenses between us, and I’m not sure I want to challenge them. Question for you—if we can get into the CIC, would we be able to stop this thing?”
“Yes, if you could get into it, you should be able to stop it; however, I went by there and the CIC is sealed off.”
“But if we can get in, we’ll be good?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
Walker looked at Earl. “What do you think?”
“I’d like to get to the manufactory, but we’re down to nine combat effectives as it is, counting you and me. We can’t afford to lose any more of our folks.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Let’s pull back to the CIC on Deck Sixteen and see if we can’t find a way into it.”
“I think that’s a good call. We can set up some charges as we go. That way, if they bring the laser up to where we are, we can blow the shit out of it.”
“Right,” Walker agreed. “We can also salvage all the lasers from the bots we destroyed. They may come in handy as we try to cut our way into the CIC.”
“We’ll need them, I suspect,” Earl replied. “You ever tried to cut your way into an armored space before?”
“Not onboard a ship,” Walker replied.
“It’s going to take some doing. We’ve got what? Six days?”
“That should be plenty of time, shouldn’t it?” Walker asked.
“With handheld lasers?” Earl paused, considering. “It’ll be close.”
* * *
Deck Sixteen, Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Hyperspace
“I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Commander Earl said a couple of days later as Walker studied the entryway they were trying to cut into the CIC. “The handheld lasers just don’t have enough power, and we aren’t going to have enough of them, even with the ones we salvaged from the robots.”
“Well, shit,” Walker replied. “You’re the entry specialist. How about blowing a hole with some of our demolitions charges? Maybe once we’ve weakened it some with the lasers?”
“We might be able to get through the armor—and that’s a ‘might’—but it would probably take all of our explosives, leaving us with nothing to blow up whatever we want to destroy inside.”
“So, what are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you, with all due respect, that it can’t be done. Not with the tools we currently have, anyway. Between having to stand guard and rest periodically, we also don’t have the manpower to do it, even if we had better tools, like the cutting laser the bots slagged.”
“Any chance of getting it operational again?”
“None. Once again, not with the tools we’ve got.”
“We need better tools,” Walker noted.
“Sure seems that way.”
Walker stared at the door, wishing his glare was strong enough to cut through the armor. “How big…” he started to say, then cocked his head and looked at the door some more.
“How big, what?” Earl asked when it didn’t seem like Walker was going to continue.
Walker turned away from the portal to look at Earl. “How big a laser would you need to cut through it in the time we have remaining?”
“Hell, I don’t know. A really big one?”
“One that was big enough to shoot down an incoming missile?”
Earl laughed. “Sure, that would work. Got one of those lying around?”
Walker smiled. “Actually, yes, I do. Something Sato said just hit me. The other day, he said he saw some bots go past him with pieces of one of the ship’s lasers, to be used in the manufactory. That laser had to be from one of the aft anti-missile mounts; an anti-ship one would be too big for the bots to maneuver easily.”
“That’s great, but those lasers must be eight or nine decks from here, through the bots waiting for us on Deck Seventeen. If there were even any left to be had—the ship’s made an awful lot of those robots.”
“True,” Walker replied. “But if there’s an ‘aft’ anti-missile laser bank…”
Earl smiled. “There has to be a forward one, and it has to be forward of us.”
“My thinking exactly,” Walker said. “The ship has gone into ‘contain’ mode again with us—it probably knows even better than we do that we can’t cut through the CIC with what we have, but I’ll bet it never thought about us disassembling one of the anti-missile lasers and moving it here.”
“No, and that would be big enough to do it—if we could get it here—and if we could get it powered up. And figure out a way of mounting and aiming it.”
“Well, we’ve only got four days remaining; we better get to it.”
* * *
Deck Sixteen, Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Hyperspace
“They’re pushing us hard,” Sergeant Enkh commed from the front line of the ramp leading to Deck Seventeen. “They brought up the heavy laser. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to hold out against it.”
Walker looked at Earl. “The ship’s figured out what we’re doing. That’s the only explanation.” He gestured to where Corporal Calderon was using the jury-rigged anti-missile laser to cut through the CIC doorway. It had taken them almost all the time they had remaining to disassemble, move, and reassemble one of the “small” anti-missile lasers. If they hadn’t had CASPers, they wouldn’t have been able to get this far.
It had also taken most of their remaining fuel, though, and some of the suits’ fuel levels were critical. Although Earl hadn’t been sure the laser would work, Walker’d had them try it, anyway. They were 20 hours from hyperspace emergence; they were out of time.
Wonder of wonders, the laser had worked, but then the ship’s robots, which had for four days seemed satisfied to leave them alone at the CIC, had renewed their attack. For some reason, the ship had changed the protocol from Contain to Assault again.
Earl nodded. “The power draw for it probably gave us away, and it’s worried we can burn through with this. If nothing else, that means the ship thinks we’re on the right track, so we’re probably onto something. If the ship thinks it can be done, it probably can. We’ve just got to hold off the stupid robots long enough to get it open.”
“I’ll go help with the defense,” Walker said. “You stay here and get that door open.”
“Can we help?” Thorb asked. “We haven’t gotten to do anything since we got here.”
“Yeah,” Walker replied, “I’ve got several things you can do to help.”
“What?” Thorb asked hopefully.
“Stay here, do whatever Commander Earl says, and stay out of the way.” He put his hand up as Thorb started reply. “I don’t have time for this; just give me a ‘Yes, sir.’”
“Yes, sir,” both SalSha said, sounding exactly like they did every time they got put on restriction for violating shipyard speed limits.
Walker turned and hurried to the ramp to the next level before they could come up with any other “good” ideas, and he found three troopers holding back the bots. One would fire quickly, then withdraw in the face of a number of laser bolts.
“What do you want me to do?” Sergeant Enkh asked. “There are a bunch of them down there—I can’t tell how many—and they’ve almost got it in place. Once they do, they’ll be up here in a heartbeat.”
Walker risked a quick peek over the railing, then dove back out of the way as a firestorm of laser bolts went past him. “Yeah, there are a bunch of them for sure. I’m going to blow the charges down there, then we’ll go down and finish off any of them we missed. Are you three ready?”
They each indicated their assent.
“On three,” Walker said. “One, two, three!” He pressed the detonator, and the charges they had placed on the next level—mostly K-bombs—blew up with a huge flash. “Let’s go!” he commed.
He had just jetted over the railing when all the lights went out.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
Deck Sixteen, Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Hyperspace
“Mother fucker,” Earl snarled over the comm.
“Did the ship just do what I think it did?” Walker asked as he flew down to the next deck. He switched on his external lights at the last second and narrowly avoided slamming into the floor of Deck Seventeen. Illuminated by the exterior lights of four CASPers, the remaining bots were quickly put out of operation. Judging from the cloud of metal and parts obstructing the passageway, there must have been nearly 20 of the bots in the corridor.
“To answer your question,” Earl replied, “yes, the fucking ship turned off all the power to Deck Sixteen.”
“Including the CIC?” Walker asked.
“No, I suspect that’s on a different bus. Probably something higher priority. You want to be able to turn off the nonessential stuff while keeping the vital circuits needed to operate the ship. No, the CIC will have power…but we don’t.”
“Well, see what you can do,” Walker replied. “We wiped out the ones that have been holding us at bay. We may be able to exploit the breach and make it down to the manufactory. If we can do that, at least we’ll have some peace and quiet while we try to figure out what to do next.”
“Besides whining about how we’re totally screwed?”
“Yeah, besides that. I’ll take the Horde and go kill the bots. I’ll leave you the Bees; you guys figure something out.”
“Anything else I can do for you?” Earl asked.
“Yeah, do it quickly. We’re almost out of time.” Walker switched to the Golden Horde frequency. “Horde, on me. We’re going to take the fight to them. The way to the manufactory is open; let’s go!”
As Walker pushed his way through the cloud of debris, a large item blocked his way. “Now this might be helpful…” He grabbed the heavy laser the bots had been firing at them and a power pack floating nearby and handed them to Corporal Calderon. “Quickly! Take these up to Commander Earl with my regards.”
Dark Moon Arisen Page 28
