Invasion (Contact Book 1)

by David Ryker

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The words died as he thrust the page back in his pocket and picked up his pace. His throat burned. The corridors weren’t long but they were too long right now. We’re right in the path of that damn ship, he screamed to himself. Loreto needs to get us out of the way.

  He couldn’t feel the Vela move. Maybe it was the running. But the engines should have been roaring. He’d just passed them and heard nothing, he realized, the thought almost stopping him dead in a hallway.

  The ship rocked and spun. Cavs was thrown into a wall. His ears were filled with the sound of scraping metal. The Vela juddered and—down the end of the hallway—he heard explosions. Sirens. We hit something!

  Dazed, he scrambled to his feet. The ship rocked again. He collided with a wall. Felt a rib crack. We hit something big! He looked down the corridor, trying to hold his head still. It was dark. Emergency lighting. He saw smoke billowing. The guns!

  They must’ve hit against the front of the ship. Cavs dragged himself up, feeling his chest bellow in pain. Smoke filled the route ahead. He ran into it, coughing, toward his guns. Damn, every step was agony. He sprinted. I know it’s bad. I know it’s bad. Don’t be bad.

  The forward guns were the biggest. They were on the sweet spot of the ship, right on the bow, perched just below the Plimsoll line. Without those, the Vela’s firepower was halved. Smoke stung his eyes; he couldn’t see. No light. He knew these corridors well, and he ran ahead with one hand on the wall. It was heating up.

  The ship rocked again. Alarms screamed. Cavs heard the hiss of oxygen escaping. The sound of doors slamming around him. Not the guns, he pleaded. Not my guys. I should have been there with them.

  He couldn’t run anymore. He staggered, aching. He tried to sprint. The smoke choked him. Something wet flicked across his face. Coolant, he worried, wiping it away. But it didn’t sting. The sprinklers. Automatic, ready to kill the fire. The vents sprang to life, sucking out the smoke. The emergency lights blinked. Cavs could see ahead. An empty, familiar corridor. The forward guns were around the next corner. He ran.

  Whipping around the corner, yelling in agony, he stopped. A closed blast door ahead. The thickest on the ship, a half-meter thick barricade with a small window at head height. Oh God, no. Cavs ran toward it. Maybe they survived. I need my guns. I need my crew. Oh God.

  He hammered his fists against the hot blast door. The sector was sealed. They’d collided with the Leviathan, obviously. The bow of the Vela had clattered into the Symbiot ship. The scraping of metal on metal, ripping them open. The forward guns would have been hit.

  Cavs threw his face up against the window. He looked through. It was dark. Smoke on the other side. His eyes adjusted and he saw the room familiar beyond. The gunnery offices, where he spent most of his life. His friends were inside. His crew. He squinted, making out a shape on the ground. A person, laying flat. Alive or dead? He couldn’t tell.

  He hammered on the door, the banging reverberating down the hallways. Cavs looked around. There had to be a way in, a control or an override. He ripped open a panel next to the door. Big, heavy levers. He looked through the window again.

  “Day! Rucker!” he tried to see inside. “Vanis!”

  Nothing moved inside except the smoke. An automated voice echoed through the ship.

  “Forward guns: damaged. Sector sealed. Sector sealed.”

  He tried the door again. Nothing. He ran to the emergency controls, trying to read the labels on the levers.

  “Warning!” the computer announced. “Fire in adjacent sector! Fire in adjacent sector!”

  Cavs felt the warmth of the metal door. A fire on the other side. His friends were in there. He had to get them out.

  “Please vent sector manually!” the computer repeated.

  A flame flickered in front of the window. Oh God, the ship’s on fire. We’re doomed.

  “Warning, please vent sector manually.”

  Cavs looked at the levers, reading DOOR, LIGHTING, and VENTS. For emergencies only. He tried to pull the door operator. Nothing happened.

  “Door sealed, please vent sector manually.”

  “No!” Cavs shouted.

  He pressed his face to the warm glass. He saw the body again. Vanis or Day or Rucker, he couldn’t even tell who it was as the smoke swirled in the room.

  “Warning, please vent sector manually.”

  He had to pull the lever. If the fire spread through the ship, it would kill them all. Everyone on the Vela. They’d lose the battle, they’d lose Sparta. The whole species, up in smoke. Cavs wrapped his hand around the manual ventilation lever. If I pull this, the airlock opens. The fire goes out. All the oxygen in the room goes with it.

  He knew the procedure. He heard his heart racing, banging against his chest. It helped to say things slowly. He was scared. Day, Rucker, and Vanis, all still on the other side of the door. If they were alive, he’d be killing them, robbing the oxygen from the room.

  They’re dead, he told himself. They might not be. A scream crawled its way out of his throat and everything hurt and ached and his thoughts fought with his emotions. He gripped the lever tight.

  A tear ran down his cheek. He felt the warmth of the door and looked through the window. A body. His friend. He couldn’t even see who. A lick of flame.

  “Warning, please vent sector manually. Critical issue imminent.”

  Cavs raged against the metal door. I shouldn’t have to make this decision. The guns should have worked the first time. The Leviathan should have died. We shouldn’t be here right now.

  This was Loreto’s fault. Cavs looked at his friend through the window. His heart tore in two. The lever felt sweaty in his hand. Heavy. He pulled.

  The smoke shot across the room and vanished into holes in the wall. The fire died instantly. The clothes on the body fluttered and Cavs had to turn away. A leg twitched. He couldn’t watch. They might be alive.

  Slumped to the floor, he cried. Vicious, agonizing tears.

  “Sector ventilated,” the computer said calmly. “Air restoring in ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes. If they weren’t dead already, he’d just choked the life out of his friends. He felt broken. His pager buzzed in his pocket.

  “Cavs.” Loreto spoke through the tinny speaker. “We saw the sector vent. You’re there? Cavs?”

  He stared at the device and felt nothing but loathing for the man on the other end.

  “I need my guns, Cavs.” The admiral sounded desperate. “The forward sector is dead, but we’ve got the rest. Get shooting for me, Cavs.”

  The page sat in his hand. He couldn’t listen. Every syllable of the man’s voice cut him open, like a razor dragged across his eyeball. All his friends were dead and it was all that man’s fault.

  Cavs wanted to lay down and die. But he thought of everything else, every single thing in the Federation that would die if they didn’t stop that damned Leviathan. The dread, surging toward Sparta. He stood up, crushing up his emotion first into a ball, then a molecule, then an atom. He pressed it tighter and tighter until he felt nothing.

  I’ll get you your damn guns, Loreto.

  33

  Loreto

  Hertz rattled through the damage report. The ship was hurt; Loreto felt like he’d lost a limb. The bow broken and smashed as the skeleton ship pushed forward. Not fast but powerful, anything in its way simply smashed aside.

  “Call Cavs again” was all Loreto could manage.

  “But sir, he was–” Hertz had a sadness in his voice. He had read the damage report.

  “I want to talk to him. Now.”

  Cavs couldn’t have been in the sector when the dead ship hit but there were others down there, too. They’ve got to be dead now, he thought. Of the Hanged Tree’s strained words haunted Loreto’s thoughts. They told us to target that ship, they told us that would stop them. He watched the naked, horrific Pyxis as it drifted past them, accelerating. Maybe this is their revenge for what I did. He’d come so c
lose to victory and then had it snatched away so viciously. But Loreto didn’t have time to hate himself.

  “Power levels surging again,” said Menels, a strangeness in his voice. “Surging.”

  They’d lost the forward guns. The Vela had an open wound.

  “That can’t be right,” said Hertz.

  “It’s right.” Loreto knew. It was the Exile tech. They’d infected his ship, plundered his network, stolen his language and God knew what else. If our guns had been accurate, we wouldn’t have this problem, Loreto told himself. If our shields weren’t so good, we’d already be dead. Healing and corrupting in equal measure.

  The consoles at the sides lit up all the worried faces. But the giant, ghostly projection dominated the dark bridge. The Exiles were still there. Maybe they didn’t betray me, maybe they’ve lost, too. He’d opened a link between the Symbiot ships and the Exiles. It was the only way of locking them into the fight. Maybe I’ve killed two species today.

  There were hardly any Wisps left. More people to mourn. Sliti held the Spartans in a tight formation, picking off the dregs. The battle had moved ahead of the Vela and the Leviathan and Loreto felt left behind. I’m not dead yet, he told himself. I’ve got to stop that ship.

  Rip out the heart, the Exiles had said. It moved like nothing else. Reacting in real time, almost organic. Loreto massaged his temple as he walked through the projection, examining the Leviathan from every angle. He hated every weld, every rivet, every atom. Her former owner’s arrogance, made metal. A wretched, horrible machine. Even from beyond the grave, Fletcher conspired against him. The ghosts of his past, his every mistake coming back to haunt him again.

  He was aware of his crew, distantly, and he could hear Hertz and Menels organizing the thousands of people on the ship. All those people, Loreto thought, and they all trusted me. Maybe Cavs was right.

  The battle was still happening. The Exiles corralling and funneling, the Federation Fleet picking off what they could, the remaining Wisps still locked in dogfights, and the Spartans, led by Sliti, seemed to be setting the Leviathan in their sights.

  I’ve got to kill it. Loreto could feel his ship’s engines surging.

  “Still nothing from Cavs?” he asked and Hertz shook his head.

  The Spartans streamed past the Leviathan, pounding it with munitions. Still, the ship plunged on.

  “I don’t understand,” Menels stammered. “It… it doesn’t have shields. Not any I can see…”

  “It doesn’t need them,” replied Loreto without moving his eyes. “It is a shield. Look at that tech. It absorbs everything.”

  “Then how do we beat it?” asked Hertz.

  Loreto let the question hang in the air. How do we beat it? It had to be Fletcher’s ship. It had to be. He almost laughed. It can’t be that simple…

  “I want Cavs on the comms,” he said again. “Now.”

  “Sir, I think he–”

  “Then who put out the fire, Menels? Get me Cavs right now.”

  The Spartans finished their raid and vanished into the throng of the battle. They’d had no effect. As he watched, Loreto ran his fingers through the ghostly shapes. He arranged ships, set up blockades. He rallied what humans he had left and sent them out to the Exiles, sniping at the fringes of the battle. An idea kindled in his mind.

  “Cavs,” he shouted into his page. “Cavs, where are you?”

  Awkward silence. Menels didn’t dare speak.

  “Here,” the comms crackled. “I’m here.”

  The sadness in the man’s voice hit Loreto like a hammer.

  “How’s your sector?” Loreto asked. He desperately needed firepower of any sort.

  “Dead.”

  “Everything? The whole sector?”

  “I vented it,” said Cavs, his voice comatose. “They’re dead, Loreto. They’re all dead.”

  He looked across to Hertz. The kid sounded defeated. He covered the comms link and made sure it was disconnected.

  “Cavs needs help,” he told the captain.

  “He’s lost people, sir. Friends,” Hertz replied.

  Loreto nodded sympathetically. He turned back to the comms.

  “Cavs,” he said. “We need our guns. Can you get to the broadside? I need something. Anything.”

  A moment of quiet.

  “This is your fault, Loreto.”

  A soft voice. Cavs had considered his words. They cut deep; Loreto blamed himself as well.

  “Cavs,” he began, “I can’t–”

  “They’re dead. We couldn’t fire in a straight line, Loreto. We couldn’t trust the shields or the aliens. They’re dead and it’s because of you.”

  There was no time to go to his office and take the call in private. Cavs is right, it is my fault. He rubbed his eyes with a rough knuckle.

  “I know, Cavs. I know they’re dead. I know what it feels like to lose someone. To lose people who depend on you.”

  He looked up into the darkness and saw the shadowy shapes of the people at their stations. His crew. His family, for lack of anything else. They’d leave behind widows, orphans, and weeping mothers. His own wife looked back from decades ago, standing alongside the children he never had. The only people he could come close to loving.

  “But I need you, Cavs,” he continued. “I need you to get my guns working and I need you to point them exactly where I tell you to or we’re going to end up with plenty more dead. I don’t want this blood on my hands, Cavs. I’m sorry. But we need you.”

  Loreto knew he was being watched while he waited for the reply. He never wanted an audience.

  “It doesn’t matter,” came the reply. “We can’t shoot straight. That alien tech is–”

  “Cavs,” Loreto interrupted, “that tech is the only thing keeping us alive right now.”

  “It killed them. My friends. You killed them.”

  Loreto felt himself getting angrier. He didn’t have time for this and he didn’t have the resources. But there was no one else on the ship who could work those guns like Cavs. The rest were dead.

  “Listen, Jimmy. Hate me all you want. Hell, I hate me enough for the both of us. I know it’s my fault. But, if you don’t help me right now, you’re going to make a bigger mistake than any of us have ever managed. I need you, Cavs. I need you to help me make it right.”

  The bridge was as quiet as a crypt. The projection played out silently. The Leviathan drifted towards Sparta. The battle raged on.

  “Cavs, please. We can still win.” Loreto could taste the pleading in his voice, like old metal and rust and blood.

  Quiet. Static humming. Coolant dripping.

  “I’ll… I’ll try.”

  Loreto sank down onto the holo-plate and felt a hundred tons thunder down on him from the heavens. He had to collect himself. He reached for the comms again.

  “Cavs. Anything that can fire. I’m sending you the data. Kill it.”

  No reply meant a temporary truce. Cavs had every right to be angry. Loreto had lost another one, almost as dead as Eddie Pale and it stung just as much. I failed that kid, he told himself. Even if we win this battle, I lost Jimmy Cavs.

  “Sir?”

  He would never say it aloud but Loreto knew Hertz could sense his pain and was trying to prod him into action. For just a moment, he paused. A half second sliced apart by the finest knives. Loreto took it and stretched it out and bathed in the pureness of the empty instant. He looked up at the projection. The Federation Fleet was still waging war. Their numbers had tumbled. Their kill counts were admirable, shredding apart the corrupted human ships. The Exiles protected them, laying down a blanket of cannon fire from their lofty positions. Whenever space opened up, the Spartan fighters launched another strafing attack on the Leviathan but left no scratch. The ship absorbed everything and moved slowly, inevitably towards Sparta.

  “I want full speed ahead,” Loreto roared, standing up sharp on his aching knees. “Get me close.”

  “Systems returning, sir,” Menels announced.r />
  The engines trembled and Loreto could feel his Vela coming to life again.

  “Guns, too,” said Hertz, staring at a console.

  Loreto didn’t have time to thank Cavs. The words would probably be tossed back anyway.

  “Target that cluster.” Loreto pointed to the projection. “We’ve moving on the starboard side of the big one.”

  “Alongside it, sir?” asked Hertz.

  “Just get me there,” Loreto said. “Then–”

  “Sliti on comms, sir,” Cele shouted down from above.

  The admiral waved for her to put the Spartan through.

  “Red Hand,” Sliti shouted, “got trouble here!”

  “Tell me.” He tried to find her ship in the projection. It was all moving so fast.

  “We can’t hit this thing.”

  “I know,” he told her. “I’ve got a plan. I need you to–”

  “What’s that?” she interrupted, the comms breaking up.

  “We’re moving along the starboard, I want–”

  “It’s moving, Loreto.” The fear in her voice was palpable. He located her ship, flying past the Leviathan. “Something inside it is moving.”

  He strained to see. The Sirens were too far away; they couldn’t get a clear picture.

  “Tell me,” he called.

  “It’s…” Sliti struggled to fly and talk at the same time. “It’s something inside, moving. It’s opening up. All ships, target–”

  The comms link fuzzed with static. Loreto saw the Spartans swoop round, trying again to hit the Leviathan. And then he saw movement on the crest of the ship. A panel splitting, sliding open. He saw Hertz gaping, his face full of fear.

  “Internals!” Sliti was shouting, a hint of hope in her voice. “… could be a weak spot. We’re heading in.”

  The Vela was still behind the Leviathan. The engines burned hard to catch up. The Spartans were shifting, targeting the newly opened space on the enemy vessel. Loreto looked closely as a dome emerged out of the top of the ship, peaking out and growing larger, spinning around.

  A red laser burst from the dome. It cut through five of the Spartan fighters, slicing them open. Loreto cried out.