“Steady, Blue Stars,” Boyd called out. “We are nearly there.”
Boyd looked at the point where he was going to land in a few short seconds when he heard a Marine over his helmet communications device.
“Skarak ships. Dozens of them,” the Marine shouted in anger, frustration, and fear.
Boyd knew there had to be thousands of Skarak fighters inside the mastership, so what was another dozen or two? Then he saw the flashes of Skarak crackle beams overhead. He looked up and saw a new group of over twenty Skarak warships firing on the Titan.
“I saw them appear, as if out of nowhere,” the panicked Marine shouted out.
“Steady, Blue Stars,” Boyd said firmly, restoring some calm to the Marines under his command.
The blue beams rocked the outer hull of the Titan. She fell dark a moment before her hull cracked, dust and shimmering fragments blasting out into space.
The Silence raced up from the ecliptic plane, the upper face of the Sphere still over a million kilometers away.
“Another kravin Skarak warship,” Kitzov said in disbelief and brought both fists down hard on the edge of the main holo-stage. “How many of the bastards can there be?”
He had been evading one on his tail for the best part of fifteen minutes and now another had appeared and was closing in on his starboard side.
Thresh staggered onto the flight deck.
“I thought I already saw you off the flight deck,” Kitzov said, glancing over his shoulder.
Thresh moved awkwardly toward the engineering console.
“What is a little pulse pistol blast to a Faction girl, eh?” She shoved the operator at the console aside and got to work. “You are wasting power all over the ship, Kitzov.”
“Do what you can.” Kitzov looked up at the image of the two Skarak ships closing in.
“I’m taking weapons offline,” she said. She pointed at the operator at the weapons console. “Power down the laser and I’ll take the spitz guns offline.”
The operator looked at Kitzov. “Sir?” the operator asked uncertainly.
“Do as she says,” Kitziv shouted. “And don’t waste time.”
“That’s good,” Thresh said. “Five minutes to the Sphere. We’ll lose them in there amongst the asteroids. The Silence can maneuver through those asteroids better than any Skarak warship. I’m going to take power from internal systems, routing everything to the engineering console here.”
“Life support?” Kitzov said. “You will leave me some air to breathe, right?”
“If I can,” Thresh said. She pointed at the communications operator. “Tell everyone to the rear of the third bulkhead that it is going to get dark, they will lose gravity, and it’ll get cold too. But they should have enough residual oxygen to keep them going for a while. Tell them to relax and save their breath.”
Thresh cut power to the rear sections. All crew quarters and corridors were plunged into total darkness. She routed the extra power to the drive and kicked the Silence forward, pushing the ship closer to the safety of the asteroid and further from the pursuing Skarak.
Thresh looked up to the holo-stage and checked on the range to the asteroids of the Sphere, and the Skarak behind. She had held them off and calculated she had done just enough to get them to the cover of the Sphere.
Then directly ahead of the Silence, a blue glow grew between two asteroids. A blue glow that built to a crackling ball of energy. A Skarak warship lay directly in their path and was about to give fire.
Thresh reacted. She dropped the base core in the reactor and spun the ship to starboard before kicking up the core to full again, sending the Silence on a sudden turn. The hull of the Silence creaked, and she felt the variations in the stability field as the ship was pushed to the verge of tearing itself apart. Gripping onto the console to steady herself, she looked over to the holo-stage.
The Skarak warship in the Sphere blasted out with its crackle beam. The image showed it slam into the Silence’s port side.
A moment later, Thresh saw the first flicker of blue across the flight deck. A single tiny thread of blue. It crawled across the deck like a sidewinder snake before fading to white and disappearing. Then she saw another, longer than the first, and it flickered for longer before it finally blinked out. Then another, and another. Within seconds, the deck was covered with the fine blue lines. They arced up off the deck, climbed up the bulkheads, and flickered over the ceiling plates.
Then the first touched her.
She felt a shudder. The fine energy line wrapped around her leg, and in an instant, she was covered. She began to convulse; she heard her voice quivering and moan. The flight deck was awash with fine blue and white lines of energy. Thresh collapsed to the deck and then, with cries of pain from the Silence flight deck crew in her ears, all faded to black.
“Keep her steady,” Boyd called out. The Blue Stars were distracted by the punishment being poured down on the Titan, and the demon device was tilting so a corner of the base looked set to touch down first. Boyd wanted to achieve a clean placement. He didn’t want to set this thing off accidentally, so slamming a corner of it into a Skarak hull didn’t seem like the smartest move. The Blue Star Marines were supposed to be the smartest in the entire service.
One Marine had drifted ahead of the rest and was going to be the first to touch down. He reached up and steadied the demon. Boyd twisted it and made it level. The light of weapons fire from the Union and Skarak ships flickered over the dark hull beneath him.
The first Marine touched down and brought the demon down carefully. Boyd watched and thought he saw the Marine’s boots sink into the surface of the mastership.
Then another touched down, then another, all bringing the demon down carefully. Finally, the demon itself touched the surface.
“I’m stuck.”
Boyd heard the Marine’s word, spoken calmly at first and then again in panic. Soon he was repeating it over and over. Boyd looked over and saw the Marine attempting to pull his foot out of the surface of the ship where it appeared to have sunk up to his ankle.
Then the others on the surface reported the same.
“Use your thrusters,” Boyd said.
He looked over at Dorik and saw he was floating just above the surface of the mastership’s hull.
Boyd moved to the activation panel on the top of the dome. He floated above the device and checked that the activation circuit switch was clear. After a moment, he realized the device too was sinking into the surface of the Skarak mastership.
“Thrusters are not helping,” a Blue Star said.
Boyd looked and saw the stuck Marines getting help from their brothers. One Blue Star grabbed the ankle of his stuck comrade and pulled. Boyd saw the dark, slick surface move up and take hold of the man’s hands.
“Hey, it’s got me.”
Boyd heard the panic as the Marines began to fight to get free. He looked back to the activation circuit. The demon was in place and ready to arm.
“This is Boyd of the Resolute Blue Stars. Device deployed. Ready to activate.”
He looked down at the struggling Blue Stars. No others went to help, certain they would become stuck too. The only Marine who did not appear in distress was Dorik, who was still floating face-first over the surface of the ship and staring into its depths.
A message came in from the Resolute.
“This is Featherstone. Activate the device, Boyd. That is an order. Do it.”
15
Boyd had not been away from the Blue Stars for so long that he did not know to respond immediately to the word of command. The Titan was floundering, a huge crack running from the edge of the central drive generator to the outer ring of spitz cannon. The ship was venting atmosphere, lights flickering inside the dark ship as power conduits ruptured.
Boyd activated the device. The countdown began. Only a minute until the demon device did its deadly work. Boyd had seen what one of the demons had done to a Blue Star frigate and knew he didn’t want to b
e anywhere near this one when it detonated.
The Marines on the surface of the mastership were sinking even deeper into the hull. One had been swallowed up to the waist. Boyd could see his legs deep within the surface, stretched away in great ripples like waves. The Marine’s head lolled sideways, and his suit’s bio readout told Boyd the man was dead. A casualty of the Skarak war.
Activating his electron bayonet, Boyd dropped down to hover just above the surface of the Skarak hull, the meter-long blade lighting up on the end of his rifle. He plunged the blade into the hull next to a Marine’s leg. The blade cut into the hull with ease, making a deep, wide scar in the material.
The Marine tugged desperately, but then the hull closed up, flowing slowly back into place. The Marine let out an agonized yell and then fell silent before he was drawn deeper into the hull before being totally consumed by it, lost in the deep dark of the Skarak hull.
The countdown on Boyd’s holo-stage let out a warning signal, telling him he had only seconds to leave if he was going to make it to safe distance. He hated himself, but he had to give the order.
“Blue Stars back to the Resolute.”
One Marine was firing his pulse rifle down into the hull near his legs where he was trapped. The rounds slammed into the surface and then appeared to slide inside, defusing and spreading out.
The Blue Star Marines could not leave their trapped comrades behind, but Boyd knew it was hopeless. He grabbed a Marine and spun him around.
“Go! That is an order,” Boyd shouted. He flung the Marine away from the hull and out into space in the general direction of the Union ships that were still exchanging fire with the Skarak armada.
Sergeant Dorik was floating a meter above the hull, face down, arms outstretched, looking into the surface. Boyd could see the sergeant’s reflection in the hull. Dorik appeared mesmerized by it.
“Rik. Let’s go.” Boyd grabbed Dorik by the arm.
Dorik shrugged him off and let out a quiet grunt.
“Sergeant Dorik. Move.” Boyd pulled him hard.
Dorik pushed Boyd away and continued to stare down into the strange hull.
Boyd drew a short tether from his suit’s belt and hooked it onto Dorik, then he fired his suit’s thrusters and powered away. As Boyd moved off, Dorik in tow, he saw Sergeant Dorik reach out to the hull, trying to grab hold as he was drawn away.
The countdown on Boyd’s wrist-mounted holo-stage showed that he had only a few seconds before the demon detonated. Boyd pushed his suit’s thrusters harder and gathered in the tether as he went, drawing Dorik to him. With a final heave, Boyd drew Dorik into his arms. Boyd manually activated Dorik’s thrusters and accelerated away.
Looking back to the mastership, Boyd could see that the demon device had sunk almost completely into the hull. Only the top of the dome was still free of the strange, viscous surface. All the Marines that had been trapped had sunk in fully and Boyd could see them, frozen or floating in the dark material.
Boyd saw the demon device slip under the surface…
…then it detonated.
As it imploded, it shrank down to a tiny point in a fraction of a second, leaving a flash of light as the speed of collapse exceeded the speed of light.
The Skarak hull around the device shimmered and rippled with flashes of blue crackle energy until the power of the demon overwhelmed it and it too began to collapse. The dark hull followed the implosion, slowly at first and then rapidly. The shimmering surface material was torn and shredded as it fell inward, stretched and pulled into a single point where the device had been.
Boyd saw another flash far away over the hull of the massive mastership as another of the demon devices detonated. The mastership began to shake, the rapiers nearby quivering. Waves of blue crackle energy flickered off the ends of the rapiers and gathered around the base structures. The ship was pulled in two directions toward the detonation points of the two demon devices.
Then Boyd felt the tug of the demon too. He felt it on his feet as space-time was stretched and fell in on the detonation point. It felt like a great crushing weight on his feet.
Suddenly, he was free again and racing away from the mastership that was rapidly collapsing around two points. Finally, the ship was torn apart, blue crackle energy bursting out of fissures torn in the dark ship’s body.
As the moon-sized mastership collapsed under its own weight, the warships broke formation and moved away. One warship maneuvering too close to the mastership was drawn in by the collapse, its drive section erupting in a huge explosion that silhouetted the collapsing mastership.
A group of warships swept down under the collapsing mastership and scooped up hundreds of returning fighters. Boyd feared for the people of Supra Eight. How many of them had been scooped up by the Skarak? How many were now being turned into the lifeless soldier-slaves?
As the Skarak formation broke up, the Union pressed in hard. Cruisers moved in on the exposed flanks of the warships and hammered them with mass beams, which created localized area of collapse along their hulls. The lasers punched through the warships, slicing clean through and bursting out the other side. Spitz gun fire flickered across space in all direction, targeting the fleeing enemy.
Then the Titan, broken and battered, flickered back to life. She opened fire with every available gun. Like an old prize fighter, the Titan was still up for the fight and lashed out at the enemy. The carrier had suffered heavy damage in the battle, but she had not lost the will to fight.
As Boyd moved in on the Resolute, its hangar door opened and invited him in with bright light just as more Union ships arrived.
The carrier Goliath decelerated and came alongside the broken Titan. Both fired into the scattering Skarak ships.
As the cruisers cut into the Skarak formation, the remaining warships turned and fled. They moved in strange jerking motion, moving in small flickering jumps until within a few seconds, all warships had powered away, scattering in all directions, leaving the remains of the mastership burning and covered in liquid blue fire, still crushing down into the two centers of collapse created by the demon devices.
The demons had done their job. The mastership was broken. The Blue Star Marines had done their job and delivered the devices.
Boyd turned to the bright welcome of the Resolute’s hangar deck. He drifted in and touched down. Sergeant Dorik landed next to him. He pulled at the tether holding him to Boyd.
“What’s this?” He held up the tether and showed it to Boyd.
“You’re welcome,” Boyd said. He unclipped the tether. “I only saved your life.”
Dorik turned his back on Boyd and walked away without even a glance out of the open hangar to the Skarak mastership burning in the void.
“Don’t mention it,” Boyd called after him. He remembered Dorik had been a grumpy old sergeant from time to time, and Boyd didn’t need thanks for saving a fellow Marine. He shrugged it off; it had been a dangerous mission and close thing. With a final look out of the hangar deck at the Union attack group, he relaxed. He looked around the hangar at the familiar sights of the old Union ship.
He was back.
16
Boyd sat on the edge of the examination table in the Resolute’s med-bay. Doc Cronin was working alongside a pair of doctors from the Goliath and a small team of medical drones. One doctor was studying Boyd with a scanner.
“I’m fine, Doc,” Boyd said. “What about Rik?” He pointed at Sergeant Dorik.
The sergeant was lying on a table with a pair of drones hovering over him. The doctor looked over and then back to Boyd.
“He’s a bit quiet, is all. Combat can do that sometimes.”
“But Dorik has been solid for as long as I’ve known him.” Boyd looked around the doctor blocking his view of Dorik.
The doctor shrugged and moved into Boyd’s view again. “You are fit to return to duty, Sergeant.”
Boyd nodded, thanked the doctor, and slipped off the examination table. He glanced over at Dorik, who
was staring up with a blank expression. Boyd knew he was getting the best treatment available. He wanted to go over, ask Dorik what he had been staring at in that Skarak hull, but he thought better of it. He could ask another time. Better to leave Dorik in the hands of the experts.
Boyd walked out of the brightly-lit med-bay and into the corridor. The sounds of post-battle celebrations were heard throughout the ship. Boyd saw a friendly face walking toward him.
“Sergeant Will Boyd.” Yanic Knole clapped a hand on Boyd’s shoulder. “Didn’t know if you were ever coming back. Those Faction girls can be a bit wild, eh?”
Boyd smiled. “Sure, maybe I’ll hook you up, if you can tear yourself away from curveball for a second.”
“Hey, I can multitask. You are a Ravens fan, right? Just like the major. There is a match coming up soon. I’ll be happy to watch with you.”
“Sure,” Boyd said. He shook Knole by the hand. “Good to see you.”
Knole called after Boyd, “You too. Welcome home.”
Boyd dropped by the command deck. He stepped in. It was quiet. Second watch was on duty, but the major was sitting in his command chair studying after-action reports on his armrest holo-display.
“Major,” Boyd said. “I’m not disturbing you, am I, sir?”
Featherstone stopped what he was doing, looked down, and instantly a huge grin spread across his face.
“Sergeant Will Boyd, back from the brink twice in one day. I declare, they haven’t built a bad guy yet who could put you in the ground.”
“I hope not,” Boyd said with a smile.
“Good work out there today,” Featherstone said.
“I’m not so sure about that, sir,” Boyd replied. “The ship I escaped from—the Silence. Any plans to get after it?”
“Crumbs, Boyd. You’ve just had a heck of a fight. Don’t you want to at least take the evening off? I hear they have some brews in the mess hall. Take it easy, you deserve it.”
Invasion (Blue Star Marines Book 3) Page 12
