“Got another door this side, sir,” called Private Raimi. “Red light as well.”
“Leave it and get over here.”
Private Montero lounged against the wall adjacent to the door, like this was the easiest mission she’d ever had the good fortune to be sent on. Recker wasn’t fooled by the act – Montero’s eyes didn’t stop moving and her rifle barrel was only a few inches low.
“Want me to try this switch, sir?” she asked.
Recker waited until the others were settled nearby, either in cover behind the monitoring hardware or crouched with guns aimed at the door.
“Go for it.”
Montero didn’t make the same mistake as Drawl and she pushed firmly with her thumb. The light didn’t change and the door didn’t open.
“Try again,” said Recker.
A second push of the switch produced the same outcome as the first.
“The lock on this door might indicate a vacuum on the far side, sir,” said Lieutenant Eastwood.
“Good point.”
Private Titus Enfield was carrying a pack full of explosives and he rose from cover when Recker beckoned him over.
“Private Enfield, this door thinks you can’t handle what’s in that pack,” he said.
“Let’s see about that, sir.”
Vacuum depressurization would be strongest near the door, so Recker made sure everyone was far enough clear.
Like Recker expected, the members of this squad were skilled and efficient. They talked too much crap on the open channel, but that didn’t slow them down and Private Enfield had eight shaped charges fitted to the door frame in less than a minute. Once he had the last one in place, he raced away with his pack in one hand and rifle in the other.
“Remote detonation,” he said gleefully. “Avert your eyes, people.”
A second later, the charges ignited, producing a fizzing sound from the plasma burn, followed by a shaped blast to rip the door clear.
“Depressurization commencing,” said Vance.
The air in the room was sucked through the doorway, producing a muffled drone. Recker leaned from the cover of his maintenance console to check Enfield’s work.
“Clean,” he said approvingly.
Enfield had taken the door out neatly and the slab of metal lay flat on the far side of the door, its edges red-rimmed from the plasma heat. The air shimmered slightly as it vanished through the opening and Recker tried to make sense of what was on the far side.
“Something wrong through there,” said Vance.
“Looks like.”
Recker went ahead and peered around the doorframe, taking care that his suit didn’t touch the hot alloy.
It was difficult to be certain if this new room had ever been a copy of the old, because it was all burned. A layer of char clung to every surface and Recker saw misshapen lumps and bulges on the floors and walls. What he assumed were pipe racks and cable trays drooped from the ceiling.
The source of the damage wasn’t hard to find. A couple of hundred meters from the doorway, a near-circular hole had taken out most of the wall and part of the ceiling. The angle wasn’t good enough for Recker to see far into the opening, but he had no doubt this was also the cause of the vacuum.
“What the hell made that?” said Vance.
“It was no missile,” said Recker. “A beam weapon of some kind.”
“Must have been a hell of powerful one to penetrate so far into the cylinder,” said Eastwood. “Far more intense than anything we’ve got in the HPA and probably more than anything the Daklan fleet is equipped with.”
“Two warring races,” said Corporal Hendrix. “Neither of which we’ve met.”
Recker had already surmised most of this and here was yet more evidence in support. When news of this came back to high command, he expected soiled pants, resignations and plenty of finger pointing. Maybe some of the crap would land squarely on top of Fleet Admiral Thaddeus Solan and his son Gabriel, though Recker expected it would slide right off leaving only the stench behind.
“We need to find a way up, Sergeant,” he said, clearing his mind. He turned to look at the squad and found they were waiting for him to act.
Getting rusty.
Recker strode into the new room, watching carefully for anything hostile or dangerous. It didn’t seem likely he’d find enemy forces – Daklan or otherwise - but caution cost nothing.
“Find me a way up,” he repeated. “Stairs, lifts, or a rope ladder. I don’t care what it is.”
He advanced deeper into the room, finding himself drawn to the place where the beam weapon had breached the cylinder. The char was dry underfoot and it crumbled where he trod, leaving imprints in his wake. He paused for a moment next to a waist-high lump on the floor and rubbed at the black coating. The top layer flaked off, revealing heat-darkened alloy beneath.
The beam from the unknown weapon must have been an easy fifty metres in diameter and the damage it created was almost precision. The light from the lower room didn’t extend too far into the opening and Recker didn’t want to switch on his helmet torch in case it somehow alerted the annihilator. What he could see was melted walls and not much else.
Standing so close to the effects of the alien weapon made Recker feel insignificant and powerless. He backed away, suppressing a shiver.
“Over here, sir!” called Corporal Givens.
The soldier was nearby and was using one hand to rub at a section of the longest wall. A green light shone through the coating of char.
“Another door,” said Recker, hurrying closer.
Within a minute, the squad was gathered, and the door was open. A set of steps – even steeper than the last ones – climbed into darkness.
“Whatever’s up there, it’s got to be better than walking through this shit,” said Private Steigers. The greys of the man’s spacesuit were smeared in black and Recker noticed that his own wasn’t much cleaner.
“You’ll be happy to learn that’s exactly where we’re going, Private.”
Recker was taken by the sudden feeling that he was approaching a crossroads. He’d never gone slow on life’s road and he felt more excitement than fear. With his rifle ready, he ascended.
Chapter Twenty-One
The steps were barely wide enough for two people to pass. With no railing to hold, Recker leaned into the climb to keep himself balanced, which made it harder to keep his rifle pointing in the right direction. From what he’d seen of the operational area of the cylinder, Recker didn’t think it likely that many personnel ever worked here – nothing indicated it was geared up for the presence of a large crew.
He arrived at a landing and the steps switched back, continuing to another landing visible in the low light of the stairwell. Recker went up and the squad followed, keeping a five-step distance between each member. After four switchbacks, the final landing was larger than those preceding it.
“A door,” said Recker. “Got another red light on it.”
“Time for Titus to save the day,” said Hendrix, slurring her voice stupidly to piss off the other soldier.
“Aw shit, does that mean we’ve got to get clear of these steps?” asked Gantry.
“MG-12 too much weight for you, Private?” asked Vance. “Want me to give it to Private Drawl instead?”
“Hell yeah, hand it over,” said Drawl, who probably couldn’t lift the MG-12, let alone wield it effectively in combat.
Recker demanded quiet. “I’ve got a better idea. Who’s last man?”
“That’ll be me, sir,” said Private Joiner.
“It’s your lucky day, soldier. Go back and close the bottom door. There’s a chance this upper door won’t open while the life support detects a vacuum.”
Joiner didn’t grumble and he returned to the stairwell entrance.
“I’m ready to press this lower door switch,” he said on the comms.
“Don’t let us keep you, Private,” said Recker.
“Done.”
The l
ight on the upper switch immediately turned green.
“Private Joiner, get yourself back up here,” said Recker.
He turned to make sure the rest of the squad wasn’t bunched up and then activated the door switch. It was stiff and he felt the mechanism click. The door slid open and Recker stared with momentary disappointment into a long passage with no side turnings.
“Another door at the end,” he said.
“With a green light,” said Vance, coming up to stand next to him on the landing.
Recker’s impatience was getting the better of him and he marched along the passage. “Sergeant Vance, with me. The rest of you stay back.”
The step counter in his helmet informed Recker that the passage was eighty meters long. When he reached the end, he nodded once at Vance and then pressed the switch. The door opened and what lay on the other side was enough to convince Recker that he was in the command area of the cylinder.
He didn’t wait in the confines of the passage and sprinted for a semi-circular console to the right of the doorway, which he crouched behind for cover. Sergeant Vance went left and dropped behind an identical console.
The two men cautiously scanned the room, which seemed to form an uninterrupted circle around the central pillar, though it was impossible to be sure because of the curve. At forty metres front to back, the space was comparatively narrow, with a sub-zero, but breathable atmosphere.
“Full of tech,” said Vance.
The words were an adequate description. Three rows of the semi-circular consoles appeared to go all the way around the central pillar and every one faced the centre. Recker swept his gaze over the console in front of him – it was a mixture of primitive and advanced in a way he couldn’t immediately grasp. A few of the switches were lit and he could hear a quiet humming from within the housing.
The three wide screens were either switched off or connected to an offline system. Belatedly, he noticed the lack of a seat, which struck him as unusual. From his experience, most operators liked to park their backsides during long shifts.
“Move up,” Recker ordered.
Within seconds, the first members of the squad entered the room.
“Sergeant Vance, take over. Secure the area.”
The soldiers got on with business and Recker waited for Lieutenants Burner and Eastwood to join him at the console. At the same time, he checked in with Commander Aston.
“Looks as if we’ve reached the control centre,” he said. “I think the power is on.”
“There’s no sign of the Daklan sending a shuttle, sir. However, they haven’t stopped shining those lights into the holes.”
The words made Recker uneasy. The Daklan interest hadn’t waned and eventually they’d get bored with looking through those missile breaches. An annihilator carried a lot of troops and the shuttles to deploy them.
He cursed sourly. “Any intel we gain from this cylinder is only useful if we bring it back to base.”
“Nothing about that has changed, sir. Don’t forget to look for the docking clamp controller. I’ve tried interfacing from this deployment craft, but the cylinder hardware isn’t answering.”
“I didn’t forget, Commander.”
If he couldn’t locate the docking controller, the next option would be to blow the clamps and that would be dangerous work, no matter how talented Private Enfield might be. Recker felt his earlier excitement eroding beneath the weight of reality.
Burner and Eastwood watched him carefully.
“You know what we have to do, gentlemen. Get this hardware online and find out what we can from it. Lieutenant Eastwood, your priority is the docking clamps.”
They all knew that the shuttle wasn’t going to carry them home since it wasn’t fitted with a lightspeed drive - that meant they were waiting for the HPA to send help. None of it mattered unless the annihilator’s commanding officer decided to take his warship elsewhere and that wasn’t an outcome worth laying bets on.
The road ahead ends at a cliff edge and I’m probably the only one denying it.
Burner and Eastwood took the consoles at either side and Recker turned his attention to this one. He knew it had power and he pushed a few buttons to see if he could get the screens to turn on. Recker had a knack with hardware – always had – and he quickly got all three screens lit up. Each one showed the same alien characters, while a cursor blinked slowly, awaiting input.
The computer in Recker’s helmet had some advanced software installed that was originally used to interpret the Daklan spoken and written word. Now the Daklan language was well-known, but the translation software was still installed as standard. Recker stared at the alien characters and the software kicked in automatically. A message appeared on his HUD from the translation module.
ALTM> Insufficient data for translation.
Recker’s eyes landed on a ten-by-ten cluster of square-shaped, ivory-coloured keys, positioned exactly where an operator’s right hand might comfortably rest. He pushed several of the buttons and each time he did so, a character illuminated on the surface of the key. Then, one of the keys he randomly pressed caused the illumination to stay on permanently.
By the time Recker had experimented for a full minute, the top two lines of the screen were filled with spidery alien letters and he had no idea how to delete them. It probably didn’t matter, since the translation software could only learn from full words and sentences, rather than the crap he was typing out.
“If we can’t access the software, the translation module isn’t going to learn,” said Eastwood, struggling with the same problem.
“Even if we get a greater exposure to the language of the species that built this hardware, the module will only have a rudimentary understanding anyway,” said Burner.
The enormity of the task made Recker swear again. “I’d hoped we might find something different to this,” he said. “Maybe a star chart on a big screen, or something more pictorial that we could take a recording of and bring home with us. The military has teams who can look at stuff like that and extract all kinds of useful data from it.”
“This is what we’ve got, sir.”
“Don’t I know it, Lieutenant.”
Recker spent another couple of minutes randomly poking at keys, to see if he could stumble on the right combination to access the control menus. The method was a failure and neither Eastwood nor Burner were faring any better.
Taking a step away, Recker studied the console, hoping for inspiration. A flat, grey rectangular area at the far left of the console’s upper panel reminded him of the wireless antenna on the HPA equivalent hardware. Those antennae doubled up as interface ports and the memory of it gave Recker a sudden idea.
He stepped over to what he now hoped was the console’s interface port and instructed his helmet computer to begin hunting for an option to link. A green light appeared and Recker requested a connection. He smiled when the link formed.
With no option other than to make some assumptions on how this alien hardware operated, Recker drummed his fingers as he considered his approach. He’d long believed that some methods of doing things were simply better than others, which was why human and Daklan tech operated so similarly – the two species had naturally and independently figured out the best way to achieve the same outcomes.
With that in mind, Recker attempted to upload the HPA language module. The file was accepted, and he waited to find out if the contents would simply be dumped in a databank, or if they’d be scanned and acted upon.
He got his answer soon enough, though in a way which surprised him. A return file was offered, and he loaded it into his suit databanks. It was a language file, but his suit computer wouldn’t activate it before completing a security scan on the contents. The scan didn’t take longer than five seconds and then the file was moved alongside the other language modules, where it become active. At once, the characters on the screen and the alien keyboard became understandable.
“Interface with the port on the left a
nd upload your language files,” Recker instructed Burner and Eastwood.
They didn’t require any more instruction.
“Done,” said Burner.
“Me too. That’s going to help.”
Seconds later, Recker discovered how to bring up the main control menu.
“Defence Platform: Tenixite Converter - Primary Node,” he said, reading the words at the top of the menu.
“Primary node?” said Burner. “No wonder the Daklan are interested in this one.”
“They can’t know,” said Eastwood. “Hell, it might mean nothing. Given the size of these damn cylinders every one might be its own primary node.”
“I’m more concerned with what a tenixite converter does,” said Recker, thinking about the cylindrical holes on the planet’s surface outside.
“It must generate juice,” said Eastwood.
Recker was determined to find out as much as possible and he went rapidly through the menus. The hierarchical arrangement, which was remarkably similar to that of the HPA’s main control suite, reinforced his view that intelligent species, wherever they were found, would do the same tasks in strikingly similar ways.
He came across the monitoring tools and brought up a series of gauges on the left-hand screen.
“The central pillar is the power generating source for this whole place,” he said. “If I’m reading this the right way, the sustained output from that single source could supply everything on Earth without breaking into a sweat.”
Saying the words made Recker feel giddy and he double-checked, only to discover that the potential output was far greater than the sustained.
“The historical readings show a bunch of short-duration output spikes,” he said.
Recker stared at the chart, which displayed time stamps for the activity. Unfortunately, even with the exchange of language modules there was no point of reference to tie in the alien method of recording time with that of the HPA. One thing was certain – the spikes came in rapid succession and they happened a long time ago. After that, the output levels remained constant.
War from a Distant Sun (Savage Stars Book 1) Page 18
