He slid past the missile, just missing it. His fingers slid across the steel as he slipped by. The contact allowed him to slow his fall a little though, and Majel reeled the safety line back in, bringing him back into contact with the weapon. He worked as quickly as possible. They didn’t have much time before there would be no hope at all of diverting the asteroid.
First, he connected a small cube about the size of a lemon to the outside of the missile’s plating. The devices were something that Beth had cooked up. She and Charline had been studying the tech that the Satori’s computer systems used. The ancient aliens who had built the original systems had used a quantum based computer. He didn’t understand all of the science behind it, but the connection was instant and permanent between quantum systems.
Beth hadn’t been able to manufacture new quantum cubes, but with Charline and Majel’s help she had been able to take one of the cubes they had discovered on the ruined planet they’d named Dust and convert it into something they could use. The cubes they found had been for data storage, but they could be converted to other uses. It was possible that all of that race’s computers took on the same form - simple cubes, stacked and altered to perform any of the various tasks their masters required.
This one now acted as a literal extension of Majel. As soon as he attached it to the missile’s hull, she was able to integrate herself into the simple computing systems operating the weapon. The missile undoubtedly had failsafes designed to prevent precisely the sort of tampering he was about to perform, and he didn’t want it blowing up prematurely. He waited as patiently as he could for her to take over the missile’s operating system.
“Done,” Majel said in his ear.
“Are you sure?” John asked. There was too much at risk for anything less than absolute certainty, but this whole mission was well beyond anything he had done before. He was a thinker and a planner. Working on machines was more Beth’s thing, or even Andy’s when it came to weaponry. The whole device was a black box to him.
“Affirmative,” she replied. “Don’t worry, John. I like you too much to let it blow you up, no matter how much it might like to.”
John heaved out a shaky laugh. “Good to know.”
“I’m displaying schematics for the warhead removal on your helmet HUD,” Majel said.
John glanced at the left side of his screen, where a complex series of diagrams was flashing into place. He could barely make any sense from the plans at all. He shook his head, trying to figure out what the different lines meant, but it was gibberish to him.
“Might as well be Greek,” he muttered.
“Some of it is,” Majel replied. “Don’t worry, it’s not like you need to disassemble the thing. I’ll walk you through the process.”
She was as good as her word. It took him less than five minutes to carefully cut the warhead away from the rest of the missile. The whole missile would have been too large, but the weaponized segment of the device was small enough that he could get it into the airlock. Five minutes gone, cutting it away and dragging it back to the ship, then lashing it into place. Which left them…he glanced at his chronometer. Only sixteen minutes left until the Earth was torched. He winced. Too damned little time.
He settled back into the pilot’s seat. Majel already had the next set of coordinates in place. The ship was primed for another jump. He strapped himself in. The landing was likely going to be bad, and he wasn’t a tenth the pilot Dan was. He handed over control of the ship to Majel instead. John slid his hands down to the chair’s arm-rests and hung on as best he could.
“Do it,” he said.
“Jumping,” Majel replied.
Twenty-Nine
Dan watched the troops as they cleared the hall. They were quick and efficient, but the enemy continued to slow them down. Every intersection was another defensive position, manned by a couple of Naga. The troops cleared each obstacle, but they were taking casualties. The platoon had started with twenty-two soldiers remaining. There were only fifteen left fighting with them. He’d left Linda behind with the wounded to help protect them a few corridors back. It was a small mercy, as much to keep her safe as the rest of the soldiers.
The rest of them drove on. Taking both the bridge and engine room in time would be impossible. Their best chance was going to be the bridge. If Charline could hack their systems in time, they could still send the asteroid harmlessly into space. He glanced at the time. They had maybe ten minutes left. Any longer than that and it would be too late.
“Keep moving. The bridge is only another thirty meters ahead. We’ll likely meet heavy resistance there, but we have to breach it,” Dan said. He’d switched his radio channel to match the tactical net used by the Marines so that they could all hear him.
The corridor was empty, which struck Dan as strange. Of all places on the ship, this ought to be where the Naga were making their last big stand. If he took the bridge, he had the ship. Or at least rough control over the ship. This felt wrong. Sergeant Thompson glanced back at Dan, clearly sharing the same feeling. Dan made a hand motion signaling caution, and then another ordering him to move the men out.
Thompson sent two Marines forward. They jogged up the hall, two more men close behind. They were halfway to the big double doors at the end of the hall - which ought to lead to the ship’s control center - when the doors slid open, each recessing into the wall with a soft hiss.
What stood in the doorway was no Naga. Dan had never seen anything like it. It stood about eight feet tall, all gleaming silver armor. Even its face was covered by silvery metal, leaving only a slit of clear material for the person inside to see through. Its arms terminated at the elbows. Where the lower arms should have been were a pair of massive weapon barrels. One looked like some sort of rifle, but the other appeared more like a cannon.
“Get down!” Beth shouted. She all but tackled Dan to the deck.
The lead Marines couldn’t hear her warning in time. They skidded to a stop ten feet from the monstrous form, their weapons already spitting bullets at it. The rounds seemed to have no effect at all. They sparked when they struck its shell, but glanced off without doing any damage. The four Marines began to fall back slowly, firing as they retreated.
“My turn,” the thing said in a deep, gravelly voice.
It was speaking English! The voice even sounded familiar to him. And suddenly Dan knew who they were facing. This was no Naga.
“It’s Paul,” Andy said. He’d hit the deck beside Dan, rifle aimed forward, his face screwed up in dread.
Paul - what was left of him, encased in the Naga armor - raised his right arm. That was the one with the cannon. He fired a single blast, launching a ball of force not unlike the ones the Naga rifles used. This one was the size of a small cannonball though. It hit the lead Marine and punched a hole the size of a grapefruit clean through him, splashing blood and more across the deck and wall behind him before exploding against the wall.
Then he raised the other arm, which began firing smaller bolts of force one after another. Machine-gun fast, the weapon flung blasts down the hall at them. The other three Marines out front were cut to pieces. Another man fell jerking to the floor. He hadn’t ducked quickly enough.
“Pull back!” Dan said. There was an intersection directly behind them that they could use for cover. He fired at Paul, unloading his magazine at the head. The bullets weren’t doing any damage, but the sparks they struck seemed to distract him. Paul raised an arm across his face to fend them off. For the moment at least he wasn’t shooting at them anymore. That wouldn’t last.
Dan’s rifle clicked empty. He rounded the corner, sliding across the floor as another cannon blast caromed into the wall where he’d been a moment before. That was followed by another burst of automatic gunfire. Dan looked around. Another soldier had died in the quick retreat. The rest had made it to shelter. But they were pinned here.
“Paul! They’re going to destroy Earth. Kill everyone there,” Dan called out to him.
“Why should I care?” Paul replied. “You left me! Abandoned me!”
“We thought you were dead!” Dan said.
“Bullshit! You left me to pain and pain and more pain,” Paul said. He fired another cannon blast. It hit the deck plate in front of Dan, jarring it loose from the floor before bouncing off to explode against the ceiling a few feet away. The deck here seemed to be made of the same tough stuff as Paul’s armor, thank goodness. Otherwise his blasts would have punched through their cover and cut them to ribbons.
“The Naga did this to you,” Dan said. “Let us help you. We can take you home again.”
“LIKE THIS?” Paul roared back. “I can never go home again. They’ve made me a monster. I’m more machine than man, now.” He cackled like it was a joke.
“There’s no way to reach him, Dan,” Beth whispered beside him. “We tried before.”
Dan shook his head sadly. “If we had known…”
“There was no way we could have rescued him, even if we had,” she replied, her voice cold.
He knew she was right. When they had fled that first battle with the Naga most of their crew had been injured. Beth was at death’s door. Only a quick withdrawal had saved her life. Even if he’d known Paul was in there, Dan wouldn’t have traded Beth’s life to save his. The knowledge didn’t make him feel any better.
“Thompson, ideas?” Dan asked. He heard the tromp of heavy feet moving down the hall toward them. Paul would be on top of them in moments.
“We’ve got explosives, sir,” Thompson said. “But it’s gonna be tough getting close enough to use them.”
“That thing will cut us to pieces before we get within range,” one of the Marines muttered.
Dan glanced over at the loose deck plate. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Beth saw what he was looking at and shook her head. “No way. You’re barely walking as it is. You can’t carry all that weight too.”
“I can,” Andy said. “Toss me the explosives and then cover me.”
Thompson looked at him, shrugged, and then threw Andy a packet from his belt. Andy caught the thing and started moving. The other Marines moved out as well, taking positions on the corners and blazing away with their guns.
“Aim for the head!” Dan shouted over the roar of gunfire.
Andy lifted the deck plate and held it in front of him like a massive shield. He grunted under the weight. Dan was stunned that he could even walk while carrying it. Beth was right - there would have been no way he could do it.
Bursts of light slammed into the shield as Paul opened fire with his automatic weapon. Andy skidded backward a foot, stopped in his tracks by the fire. He wasn’t going to make it. Not without help.
“I’m coming!” Charline shouted. She threw down her rifle and rushed forward, pushing against the shield alongside Andy. They closed with Paul, almost on top of him.
“I’ve got the plate! Go!” Charline shouted.
Andy dove sideways, dodging more blasts from Paul’s gun. He placed the explosive just above the hip on Paul’s left side and continued his mad dive past the armored man, slamming into the deck on the far side.
Paul swung at Andy as he passed, but missed. His blow smashed into the plate instead, throwing it and Charline back through the air. She hit the wall hard and fell to the floor, the heavy plate coming down on top of her.
“Fire in the hole!” Thompson shouted. His men ducked back for cover.
The explosion was deafening. Fire roared down the passage in both directions, licking out over their suits and scorching the walls, throwing shrapnel and debris in all directions.
Thirty
The familiar flash of light ahead of the ship heralded their jump. A moment later the Satori was back in a Naga hangar bay. Majel had done a superb job matching their course and speed with the Naga ship. She’d gotten the jump almost perfect, a monumental feat of calculation.
The vessel was moving at hundreds of meters per second. Majel managed to get the Satori to within one percent tolerance of the same speed. Plus, she had the course heading matched with nearly flawless precision, which should have given them plenty of room to spare on arrival.
But as the Satori burst into the bay, John realized they’d failed to take the Naga ships into account. Without any visible opponents in space, the Naga cruiser had already begun recalling its fighters. A dozen of the things were parked on the hangar deck. A thirteenth was flying in as the Satori appeared in mid-air directly in its path.
The Naga ship tried vainly to dodge, but couldn’t quite manage to do so. It clipped the Satori’s surviving wing, which tore apart under the impact. The fighter turned into a fireball, and the explosion caught what was left of the Satori’s wing and flipped the ship over.
John felt the engines fire as Majel tried to compensate. The world spun past his vision as the ship’s roof careened toward the deck below. The Satori crashed down on the deck, smashing two more fighters in the process.
He must have blacked out for a moment. When he came to, John was hanging upside-down in his seat, held in place by his restraints. His wounded belly was on fire. There was no way to tell if he’d re-opened the wounds. He didn’t dare risk taking off his suit.
“Majel, are you all right?” he asked.
There was no immediate response. That wasn’t good. If she’d been damaged by the crash…could she die? They really knew so little about the AI. He’d never felt so alone.
John unbuckled his straps carefully and lowered himself to the ceiling that was now beneath him. If Majel was hurt or dead, it reduced his options significantly. He might have to just find a way to blow the nuke himself, and the hell with getting out. But he wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. Not if there were any hope.
“Majel?” he called again.
“Systems rebooting,” she replied. Her voice, usually fairly fluid and almost emotional, was a flat set of words. “Please stand by.”
At least she hadn’t been destroyed! He wasn’t completely alone here. John worked his way to one side of the bridge and checked the ship’s status through a working console. That console appeared to be nearly the only thing that was still functional on the Satori. He shook his head slowly. His ship had put forth a monumental effort. But these damage levels were catastrophic. John wasn’t sure if even Beth could put this particular eggshell back together again.
He made his way to the airlock where the nuke was strapped down. He’d have to set the thing off manually. There was no way they could escape in time, not with the drives all down and Majel out of commission. There was too little time left to risk anything else. He hoped the rest of the team would understand. John reached out to the warhead and undid one of the clasps holding it in place.
He heard voices outside the Satori, coming closer. He froze for a moment, then scrambled for the device, trying to work open a panel on the side so that he could get into the guts of the thing and activate it. The box he’d placed on the side of the missile was still there. He snagged it off and slid it into his suit.
He’d only just pocketed the device when four Naga burst into the airlock, rifles aimed at his head. John lifted his arms above his head. For a moment, he thought they might shoot him anyway, and he didn’t think it was likely their weapons were set to a stun level.
“Bring him down here,” a voice outside the ship said. The sound was more a set of snarls and hissing noises than intelligible words, but the Cyanaut in his ear translated for him.
The Naga guards grabbed him roughly by the arms and dragged him out of the Satori. A large Naga waited on the deck outside.
“At last, we have your ship,” the Naga said. “And soon, your world will burn too. Who are you, human?”
John straightened himself up, shrugging off the Naga holding him. Surprisingly, they released his arms. He figured they might not believe they had much to fear from one old, wounded human.
“I am John Caraway, commander of the Satori,” he said.
“Well, John Caraway,
your ship is in ruins. Where are the rest of your crew? Are they among those dying on the Scaled Talon?” the Naga asked.
John assumed that had to be the name of the other ship. “We took down one of your cruisers. That one will fall, too.”
The Naga hissed, a sound the Cyanaut translated as laughing. “I think not.”
“You know my name,” John said, trying another tack. This conversation was burning time he didn’t have. “Who are you?”
“My name is Kazresh. I command this ship, and this fleet.”
John knew that name well. Andrew had told him about the Naga who’d tortured him. The alien he’d battled and beaten - barely. Was it possible this was the same one? If he’d survived the damage the Satori had done to his ship, it was possible. They’d certainly given him enough reason to want to hunt down humanity.
“I can see in your eyes that you have heard of me,” Kazresh said. “Good. Yes, I have met you mammals before. You’ve escaped my clutches twice, but not this time. This time you get to watch your world burn. And then you will join it. Bring him!”
The last order was to the Naga flanking John. They grabbed him firmly by the shoulders again as Kazresh turned to walk away from the Satori, stalking off toward a corridor leading toward the front of the battle cruiser. The Naga had John held too well to even consider escaping. If he twisted even a little, their claws dug into his arms, tearing through the material of his space suit. He had no choice but to follow Kazresh and hope that a moment came where he could fight back.
Thirty-One
Dan staggered back to his feet. His ears were ringing from the concussive force of the blast, but he had to see what had happened to his friends. White smoke filled the corridor. Black scorch marks marred the silvery metal of the walls and floor, with gouges and rents where what looked like bits of Paul’s armor had punched through.
“Charline! Andy!” Dan called out. There was no answer. He could hear people moving around him, though. The Marines were getting back to their feet, flowing down the hall in a rush, rifles raised. He heard the sharp rattle of automatic fire up ahead. One of the Marines was putting rounds into something on the floor. Probably whatever was left of Paul.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 67
