Penance (RN: Book 2)

by David Gunner

  Canthouse stabbed a key on his arm console, “Engineering! I need shields, now!”

  “Sir, we’re still down one forward generator. I can give you shields but there will be no shuttering on the forward hull,” Penton responded.

  “Acceptable. Do it!” Canthouse sat down. “Let’s see if this one’s as stupid as its cousin. Load star shell. Set elevation at zero plane, course 180 and make your distance one thousand kilometres. Fire when ready.”

  The projectile spat from the rear turret to follow a Roman directness and detonate one thousand kilometres away. The creature paid no attention and spat another dart at the Bristol which bounced off the turret that fired the star shell.

  “It’s ignoring it.” Stavener said.

  “Let’s try something more appetizing. What’s quick in the rear tubes?”

  “One dogfish and one class five CN3. Both pretty equal, sir.”

  “We might need the munitions, so set the dogfish on a random path at maximum speed. Tell it to evade everything to best ability and lead away anything that follows.”

  “Aye, sir. Weapon ready.”

  “Shoot!”

  The creature watched the dogfish probe with mounting interest. This thing had more meat and smelled the same as the mother, so maybe it was an offspring trying to escape. It spat a superbly targeted dart that missed the erratically manoeuvring probe by meters. With its spines and webbed areas bristling in agitation, it coiled its body into a tight knot and sprang after the missile which continued to evade.

  “That’s got its attention,” Stavener said.

  “But who knows for how long? Navigation, anything?”

  “Yes, LC. The targeting scanners keep tracking to the same area, but there’s an anomaly and I’d like Mr Stavener to take a look at it,” the navigator said in a curiously cowed tone.

  Stavener cycled to navigation and his eyes widened, “Well, hello there …”

  “What is it?”

  ”LC, navigation had a right to be concerned as you’re never going to believe this.” Stavener gestured to the main viewer.

  Canthouse stared at the displayed an image of a large green cloud that swirled lazily.

  “That’s the cloud we came out of,” Stavener said. “And if we look closer …” The image zoomed in via quadrants onto a particularly dense area that at first had no recognisable form. But as the image magnified, Canthouse began to make out twisted fragments of what looked like spines or teeth, until he realised they were ribs: metal ribs with their skin torn and slashed away.

  “Is that a ship?” Canthouse said unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing.

  “Computer says yes but it’s not entirely sure what to make of it,” Stavener said.

  “What’s that to the right?” Palmer said pointing at the screen. “More to the right. There!” The screen hovered over several pale glyph like marks. A flashing box appeared around them and the image morphed as Stavener ran the image through several filters until the figures became legible.

  The bridge crew stared at the processed image in bewilderment for several long moments.

  “Is that an N?” Stavener said.

  “NV,” Palmer added.

  “NV10 …or something. I’ll run it through the library to see if -”

  “CNV107!” The tactical officer said with his countenance saying he regretted identifying the number.

  “CNV107! Are you sure?” Canthouse said.

  “Yes, sir. I studied her at the academy and would recognise that skeleton anywhere. It’s the Shi Lang!”

  “We’re at LN-0R!” Palmer said with a look of horrified realisation.

  A suffocating sense of dread washed over Canthouse and he took a step back. “Oh, dear, sweet, Jesus. Navigation! Find us a way out of here, and find it now!”

  “Sir, I have a gate lock but it’s somewhere you won’t want us to go.”

  “Explain.”

  The navigator gestured to Stavener, who nodded and the screen changed from the Shi Lang to a dense section of cloud several thousand meters away. A spinning blue cross representing the gate point appeared.

  Canthouse stared at it, but unable to discern the problem asked, “What’s the problem?”

  Stavener wore a stupid grin as he said, “Just wait.”

  The first officer continued to watch with his patience wearing thin when the cloud broke and something fossilised peered out. The mummified golf ball eyes and lipless bony mouth of something enormous and ancient broke the surface of the fog, with the rest hidden within. The spherical eyes flicked and darted from side to side as the bottomless black retinas tracked objects in the vicinity. But with nothing within close proximity the stone face disappeared back into the cloud as eerily as it had arrived.

  Speechless, Canthouse shook his head at what was yet another wonder.

  He turned to Stavener, “Can we kill it?”

  “It’s fifty times bigger than us, and I’m pretty sure it’s what bit the bow off the Shi Lang.”

  Canthouse gave the main screen a final aggrieved scowl, “OK, what else is there?”

  “Sir, I can’t get any other close locks, but there’s evidence of thinning two thousand kliks at 032. I believe we can try there.”

  “Do it! Full burn. Get us out of here, ASAP.”

  The bridge took on a sense of nervous urgency and the navigator was near cringing when he said, “Sir, fuel status says no to full burn. We used nearly 78% escaping the other place.”

  “Then rig for a low consumption speed run. I don’t care if we coast through the gate on sucking tanks just get us there quickly.” Agitated, Canthouse sat down and drummed his fingers as he stared at the screen.

  Moving across to him, Palmer asked, “Malcolm, what’s the big deal? Why the urgency to leave?”

  “We’re in a Koll forbidden zone,” Stavener said. “Any EDP craft found here is subject to immediate destruction.”

  “Oh!”

  “Course plotted.”

  “Execute.”

  The Bristol’s engines flared and she banked on a new course to take her to the edge of the radiation cloud.

  “How the hell did we end up here?” Palmer asked.

  “That’s a subject for later discussion,” Stavener said as he worked.

  ding ding

  “LC, we have a whole bunch of movement at 284 and 089. Looks like more macro-fauna.”

  “Have they spotted us?”

  “I think so as we appear to have drawn some interest. But on the whole they seem to be ignoring us as long as we stay away from the larger clouds and don’t draw attention to ourselves.”

  “The damn place is infested” said Palmer.

  “Well let’s try not to goad the beasts.” Canthouse said.

  What appeared on the main screen must have come from the live feed of a Triassic aquarium from some tainted universe, as reptilian oddities in alien rendition moved lazily in and about the wrecks and large dense masses of sea green ferrites that littered the area between the Bristol and her gate point. Even the smallest eel like lizards were still as large as the Bristol, and the crew stared in awed fascination as they darted from the clouds to survey the area with fiery orange protrusions, only to dart back as they approached. Several creatures resembling the multi eyed monster that had attacked them earlier watched curiously from a distance as the Bristol passed by. Most lost interest, yet one or two followed for a short while before they too found other sources of attention. Canthouse sat forward in his chair when something resembling a short snouted alligator emerged from a cloud with half a Chinese destroyer jutting from its mouth. The monster travelled parallel to them, its great bulbous yellow eye watching them with curious interest until it flinched and dove into the nearest cloud.

  “What the hell could spook something as large as th –“ Canthouse’s comment was cut short when the bridge began to vibrate as before. He looked to Stavener who stared at his display completely astounded, and indicated the main viewer with a finger. />
  To their front left the cloud heaved then separated as the blunt head of some mammoth square bodied creature of unspeakable dimensions emerged like a sperm whale from a fog bank. It positively dwarfed everything around it as it moved unhurried like a living continent, the great flanks slowly undulating to push its immense girth forward by some unknown process on an intercepting vector to that of the Bristol.

  Canthouse gave Stavener a look of concern, but the operations officer shook his head and ship and creature passed one another without interference. The Bristol flying so close and the creature so immense that the dorsal plane stretched before them like a great grey prairie flecked with white and black regolith and sparse tufts of short thick hairs the height of the ship. With the horizon their destination, kilometre after kilometre of rhinoceros hide slipped beneath the keel until they eventually passed and the tremors ceased.

  Palmer released a great choking gasp and slumped onto one of the free seats with a look of profound movement. “I think I just had a religious experience.”

  Canthouse rested his chin on his fist as he stared in captivated wonder, “Who’d believe you if you tried to explain it without the recordings.” He glanced at Stavener, “We are recording, right?”

  Recording! Stavener mouthed silently and slapped his forehead.

  ding ding

  “Looks like our snake friend is back and he seems a little pissed,” Stavener said.

  “The probe most likely ran out of fuel,” Canthouse said. “Weps, they cost a fortune but launch the CN3 and let it chase that for a while.”

  “Weapon ready.”

  “Fire!”

  The creature watched this new child with less conviction. It may be larger and fatter than the other, but that had tasted foul and it would not be fooled again. The dart penetrated the missile just in front of the detonator circuit, which presumed an electrical fault and sent a test current to recheck the integrity of the system. The test current indicated the presence of a foreign entity, which the computer mistook as a hostile attempt to invade and override its system, so it sent the detonate command to the CN3 composite warhead.

  “What triggered it!” Canthouse cried standing in front of the command chair.

  “I’ve no idea, but if the last CN3 was anything to go by then thing is going act like a magnet to every living thing in the area.” Stavener said.

  “It’ll be a god damn feeding frenzy,” Palmer said from where he stood next to the command chair. He looked to Canthouse, “We need to leave before -”

  Ding ding!

  Ding ding!

  Ding ding!

  Ding ding!

  “Oh, hell!” Canthouse said stepping forward.

  The proximity sensor rung continually as ten, twenty, and then hundreds of creatures emerged from every cloud like spirits from the grave, until swarms of dagger toothed nightmares were rushing toward the detonation.

  “Fuels status?”

  “18%.”

  “Distance to gate point?”

  “Suspected gate area now at nineteen hundred kliks,” the navigator said noncommittally.

  “What heading?”

  “Through that!” the navigator said pointing at the mad stampede of prehistoric savagery on the screen.

  “Then that’s the way we’ll go. Weps, on my mark transfer all power to the forward shields and launch everything with a warhead to run ahead of us. Hopefully they’ll clear a path we can slip through. Use the turrets and secondaries to keep anything off our tail. Navigation! On my mark, full power and a direct course, try not to deviate for anything.”

  Canthouse sat down, his finger hesitating over and then pressing the comm on his arm console, “Engineering. Over drive the fuel pumps.” He sat back. “Mark!”

  With her exhaust plumes extending half her length, the Bristol surged forward with missile after missile spitting from the torpedo launchers to bank around and race ahead of her.

  The first creatures to succumb to temptation exploded from the sphere of burning ordinance like meteors, trailing lumps of burning hide and heat flayed flesh as they spiralled erratically in their death spasms only to be torn fin from limb by those waiting outside. More dived in, and then more still. Some to broil alive inside, others to burst free blind and demented to be eaten alive by their brethren.

  As if a switch had been flicked once social groups degenerated from an uneasy subsistence of co-belligerence, into an out and out cannibalistic frenzy with creature upon creature as the mob fell into a flesh ripping insanity that spread like a shockwave.

  The Bristol sped onward, her port side thrusters blazing to push her away from a stumpy barrel shaped monstrosity whose mouth opened like a rose to reveal a snapping parrot beak surrounded by hooked teeth. Due to its immense bulk or lack of wit, the creature was ponderous in its movements with one dam sized leathery lip spitting and crackling as it brushed against the Bristol’s port armour as she shot past.

  On she went, climbing and diving, jinking and banking but always at the same insane speed with her shields sizzling and hull ringing from the countless impacts of flapping tails and head long charges

  Believing he could see a thinning in the stampede, Canthouse cried, “Distance?”

  “800,” the navigator responded, and then cursed as he lifted the manoeuvring augmenter to bodily lift the ship over a thrashing oval of tentacles that had been mortally opened by three missiles. Writhing in its death throes the monster swiped at the every passing thing, with the bridge lights dimming as one squid like tentacle struck the ventral shields and stalled two generators.

  “Forward shields are down. I’m trying to compensate.” The sweating weapons operator cried.

  “How many missiles are left?”

  “Five, sir.”

  “Target three of them at whatever that is,” Canthouse pointed at a dark cruciform that opened before them like a sinkhole. As the missiles turned to intercept, a thin whip like vibrissa spat from ball of sinew and bat wing to the far left to snare the lead missile, which detonated instantly shredding the noodle thin tentacle. The remaining missiles travelled deep into the cruciform maw with the mouth snapping shut as they detonated at the base of the throat. Moments later the carambola body bulged like a puffer fish with the great amber eyes bursting outwards, and every opportunistic feeder in the area moved in to feed.

  A roving eye watched as the gunboat careered past and something dark and horrible turned in pursuit.

  The first officer gripped his arm rests, his mouth ready to snap an evasive order, but the navigator did his job superbly with the ship suffering only mild abrasions as they fought on minus their protective missile screen. Eventually the herd thinned and they left the milling murder behind as they entered a large area clear of abominations, and far from the detonation. The only movement appeared to be the ship, which brushed the edge of a dense ferrite cloud as she approached the gate point.

  The navigator grinned as he watched the spinning spirals pin balling about the screen to one by one settle on a point, lock their cycles and flash green as they rotated in unison. With a sense of ecstatic triumph he opened his mouth to inform the others, but the first word had barely formed before the ship staggered and heaved as if driving headlong into a wall. The eel thing was twice the length of the Bristol, which had struck it just after the midpoint only to become lodged three quarters the way through. With her engines still burning precious fuel the Bristol shook and lurched as the creature undulated in its death spasms, only for its abdomen to separate and the gunship force itself free as the engines sputtered out.

  Previous experience saved the majority of the bridge crew who had secured themselves to their seats, with only Canthouse and Palmer picking themselves from the floor. The first officer struggled to stand from where he had landed between the forward consoles. With one hand nursing his previously injured right shoulder, Canthouse staggered to the command chair. As he sat he noticed Palmer laying sprawled near the main viewer with a stiff looking Stave
ner in attendance. They talked for a brief second before Palmer waved him away and sat up. He looked like the victim of a buffalo stampede, wincing as he stood and again wincing with every second step as he hobbled back to his seat, his left arm clutched to his chest.

  “What happened?” Canthouse croaked.

  “Something ran in front of us. We hit it. I think we went straight through.” Stavener said from where he sat at an odd angle, his left shoulder hunched up.

  “It must be bad, virtually nobody is reporting in. Shields are down, We’re losing air along the upper port side. Engines are offline and …oh shit! Navigation: fuel status!” Stavener cried to the con operator.

  The navigator dabbed at the blood that ran from a horizontal cut across his lower forehead from where his head had struck his display. Yet despite his injury the gears still turned and he understood his duty. He nodded at Stavener and wiped the blood from his cracked screen with his forearm before pecking at the keys. “Fuel status is zero,” he said in a low exhausted monotone. “We’ve exhausted the chemical motors and the sub-light motives are all off line.” Only then did his bleeding scalp wrinkle in realisation of their situation. He sat back and stared at the skewed image of the mayhem behind provided by the dislodged projector hanging by one mounting, “We’re fucked!” he said.

  Canthouse couldn’t help but smile at the most obvious statement he had heard for a long time, but he wasn’t going to give up yet. “Distance to gate point?”

  The navigator resignedly looked at his display and started laughing. His humour started as a private chuckle with his shoulders beginning to shake as his mirth increased, Soon, he lay over his console, his face buried in an arm and a fist pounding the table unable to control himself.

  The first officer looked at Stavener who from some mad contagion was also laughing, his forehead resting in his palm as his shoulders heaved silently from some obvious but obscure joke. Canthouse glanced about the other bridge crew, all of whom appeared to have caught it and were also laughing. Then from the mere absurdity of the situation he too succumb, with several barking guffaws mixing with the others before he controlled himself.