by Richard Fox
“Looks like there was one hell of a fight,” Orozco said.
“Shh!” Egan edged the sled over to line up with the shuttle bay deck and inched the sled inside. Once the rear of the sled had cleared the threshold, Egan set it down with a thump heavy enough to jar Hale’s teeth.
“And the Canadian judge takes off a point for the landing,” Standish said.
“You can walk away from it, can’t you?” Egan stepped away from the controls.
A pair of Marines jumped off and went to the sealed double doors leading to the rest of the ship. When the control panel failed to function, they unsnapped the manual locks in the door frame and twisted the circular handles, the dogs, and slowly opened the doors.
“Mathias,” Hale said, pointing at the lieutenant, “see if the atmo chamber in the Mule is still functional. Stuff Drebin in there until we’ve got the rest of the ship up and running, then get the blast doors secure. Jacobs, find the source of that distress call. I’m going to the bridge.”
Hale got off the sled and locked his boots to the deck. He felt the ship creak beneath him. Pluto twisted slowly outside the shuttle bay as the ship rolled over.
I’ve got thirteen Marines counting on me, Hale thought. This had better work.
****
Jacobs grabbed a broken crossbar and shoved it out of her way. The deck was a mess of wrecked framework and broken bulkheads. Sparking electrical wires and fractured pipes floated in the weightless passageway. Lumps of ice bounced off her armor as she stepped over a rent in the flooring caused by a Xaros beam.
“We’re going to have to seal off this whole section if we want to walk around in the ship’s atmo,” Weiss said.
“You volunteering for that detail?” Niles asked.
“Heck yeah, you think I want to stay buttoned up in my armor for the next three weeks until the fleet can get something out here? I’m getting a rash just thinking about it,” Weiss said.
Jacobs pushed aside a large piece of broken hull and found an oval-shaped hatch to an escape pod. A metal spar was impaled against the door frame. She leaned over and knocked on the door’s glass porthole. She looked inside and saw another human face staring at her.
The woman inside opened her mouth and raised her arms, cheering. Jacobs saw high fives exchanged with other occupants in the escape pod.
“Ship must have taken a direct hit when they were getting ready to punch out.” Weiss pushed away a floating hull plate and stuck his head into a compartment open to the void. “Pod got jammed in the shoot.”
Niles flicked his finger against the spar embedded in the frame.
“Well, there’s your problem.” The Marine took a cutting torch off his belt and activated a white-hot plasma cutter.
****
The Scipio’s bridge was silent. Restraint buckles floated in vacuum, tugging against acceleration seats. Stars rolled over through the forward view ports that wrapped across three-quarters of the bridge.
The hatch at the rear of the bridge swung open. Standish and Egan stepped inside, weapons up and ready.
“Clear,” Standish said. He tapped on the control panel of a circular holo table. “No power up here either.”
Hale followed them in and went to the helmsman’s station. He grabbed the control sticks and whipped them back and forth. The corvette continued its slow, dying ballet around Pluto.
“Damn it,” Hale said.
“Captain Hale?” Jacobs said through the IR. “We found the source of the distress call. Escape pod never made it off the ship. We got the crewmen out, at least.”
“Does the senior sailor have comms?” Hale asked.
“Petty Officer Tagawa here, sir,” a woman said. “Myself and two other sailors really appreciate you getting us out of that death locker.”
“Tagawa, what’s your job on this ship?”
“Supply, sir.”
Hale slapped the palm of his hand against his visor.
“Can any of you get the Scipio back online?” Hale asked.
“Engineers Mate Allen and Yeoman Morris will need a look at the battery stacks. We’ll do all we can, sir. One more thing…are you the Hale? From the movie?”
“Yes. Now get to work, Tagawa.”
“That’s never going to happen to me,” Standish said. “It’ll always be, ‘Oh, how’d you end up with Hale? Can you get his autograph for me?’ not ‘My son has your action figure. Lunch is on me.’”
“Dude, let it go,” Egan said.
“I was erased from the historical record, fly boy. I don’t have to be happy about it. A man has his pride,” Standish said.
Cortaro reached through the hatch and grabbed Standish by the arm.
“A man better get his flapping gums to engineering and help get this ship back online before I take his air tanks away for the good of the team.” Cortaro pulled Standish through the door.
****
Hale stood next to the captain’s chair, thrumming his fingers against the armrest as Tagawa spoke. The petty officer held a slate with a wire diagram of the Scipio, red marks across much of the hull.
“Deck three is sealed off,” she said. “I’ve got the atmo tanks patched to the living quarters and we can move the air scrubbers as soon as we clear a path through gauss cannon B.”
“Air and power,” Hale said.
“Right…” She tapped her gauntlet. “Allen, what’s your status.”
“Main conduit yoke got barbequed. Chief Franks could have got it back up in a heartbeat, but his body’s down here with me. I got the auxiliary installed. Everything should work once I flip the breakers,” Allen said. “Give me a minute to clear the room. I double-checked everything, but Skippy took a hell of a beating. If there’s more damage I haven’t found, then I’d rather not be in here at go time.”
“Allen, this is Hale. We’ve got maybe another hour until our orbit decays past the point of no return. We don’t have time to make things perfect. Flip the switch.”
“Aye-aye, sir. Stand by and cross your fingers,” Allen said.
Hale opened a wide IR channel. “All units, we’re about to jump-start the ship. Make ready.”
Lights and workstations came to life. Screens filled with static.
“Hey, there we go,” Mathias said.
The power snapped off.
“Son of a bitch.” Mathias banged a fist against the bulkhead.
The bridge came to life again. Power held steady for several seconds. Hale held a finger up to Mathias before he could speak again.
“Allen, how we looking?” Hale asked.
“Minor fire. Very minor. Got it taken care of. Should have power back to the engines in a few more minutes. We can re-pressurize parts of the ship, if you want.”
“Drebin is still in the Mule’s atmo-box,” Mathias said.
“Engines are the priority,” Hale said to Cortaro and Tagawa. “Life support after.”
“We’re on it,” Cortaro said.
“Egan, can you get us a link with Earth?” Hale asked.
Egan leaned over the comm station and examined the displays. “Antennae showing green across the board. Give me a few minutes.”
“Great, after we’ve got positive comms, I need you to fly this thing.” Hale pointed to the helmsman’s station.
“This is a bit bigger than a Mule, sir,” Egan said.
“Orozco is our other trained pilot,” Hale deadpanned.
“Can be done! Absolutely can do, sir.” Egan ran a wire from the comm array to his gauntlet. “Lot of traffic coming through the Mars repeater…Jesus, the Xaros are already there.”
“What about Earth?” Hale asked.
Egan tapped on a keyboard. “Civil defense net is lit up like a Christmas tree. Hard to tell. Hold on, we’re getting a data packet…that’s taking over my work station.”
“Scipio, this is the Crucible. Stand by for instructions,” Ibarra’s voice came through every IR channel on the ship. Screens across the bridge switch to show the same image; Aba
ddon.
“To the senior ranking officer of whoever’s mucking around the Scipio. You are hereby ordered to destroy Abaddon immediately,”
“Is he crazy?” Tagawa asked. “She’s barely holding together with duct tape and hope and he wants us to destroy a moon?”
The screens zoomed toward Abaddon and passed through the outer shell. A dome appeared. Several red arrows popped up on the screen, all pointing to the dome within Abaddon.
“There is a Xaros conduit, a connection to the rest of their network, somewhere inside that thing,” Ibarra said. “Shoot it. Blow it up. Slice it into ribbons. I don’t care how you do it. Take it off line permanently it will trap the Xaros general in our solar system. Do that, and we’ve got a chance to kill him once and for all.”
Hale suddenly wished Elias had come on this mission.
“Don’t wait twelve hours for your questions to be answered,” Ibarra said, “get moving right now.”
The screens went black.
“Message repeats after that,” Egan said. “They must have been broadcasting on a loop.”
“Sir? What’re we going to do?” Mathias asked.
“No rest for the weary. Sitting around waiting to be rescued isn’t what strike Marines were made for, especially not when we can do something useful. We’re going in,” Hale said.
****
Hale removed his helmet and took a deep breath of ozone-tinted air. He set the helmet on a hook on the side of the captain’s chair and flipped up a control screen. He looked over the dazzling array of data points coming through to him and frowned.
“How do the squids keep all this straight?” he asked.
“Sir?” Tagawa asked from a forward workstation.
“Nothing. What are you looking at over there?”
“System status,” she said. “We’re leaking air from several compartments…sending locations to Cortaro now. Two point defense turrets are manned and online. Main gun is down, obviously. Both forward torpedo bays are offline, same with the starboard tube. Port tube was destroyed.”
The lights overhead flickered.
“What is working?” Hale asked.
“Atmo scrubbers and tanks are functional, barely. Main drive is still online. Same with maneuver thrusters. And the automated galley is still up and running. Later tonight we can all have tacos,” Tagawa said.
“Egan, get us moving,” Hale said.
“I would, sir.” Egan tapped on a blank screen. “But—”
“Inertial navigation is down,” Tagawa said.
“Point us at the giant alien space station and hit the gas,” Hale said.
“Roger, sir.”
The ship shuddered. The view out the front view ports stabilized. Egan steered the ship to Abaddon and held her course steady.
There was a groan of metal and a snap that shook Hale’s chair.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Number four engine came loose,” Tagawa said. “It wasn’t functioning to begin with. We’re still good.”
“What am I looking for once we get to Abaddon?” Egan asked.
“Open portal on the surface,” Hale said. “According to Torni, the conduit should be in the very center. Tagawa, are there any explosives on this ship?”
“There were eight breach charges in the storage locker on deck four,” she said. “We fired off all our torpedoes during the assault on the Grinder…wait. The torpedo in tube three failed to launch.”
“Can we still fire it?” Hale asked.
“No, the exit port is slag.”
“Then can we cut through the ship and dig out the warhead?” Jacobs asked.
“That’s…possible,” Tagawa said. “Allen knows that part of the ship. I’ll get him on it. Egan, we’ll need you to fly steady.”
“No bouncing around while you do a cesarean section on our torpedo baby. Got it,” Egan said.
Abaddon loomed larger through the windows.
CHAPTER 20
Elias held onto a heavy ring bolted to the side of the Destrier as it entered Earth’s upper atmosphere. Bodel stood next to him, Caas and Ar’ri behind. They rocked slightly through turbulence, the only passengers inside the heavy transport.
“I don’t understand why the colonel is spreading the armor across the planet,” Ar’ri said. “If that General is really after Elias, then why don’t we make him fight all of us at the same time?”
“He knows exactly where I am and he’ll come in full force,” Elias said. “The maniple that broke off from Mars is too strong for any one fortification. The armor will be fighting in every city. He either spreads out trying to find me or waits in the void, taking a beating from the orbitals.”
“We won’t bombard our own positions,” Bodel said. “The safest place for his drones is right on top of the city.”
“So we want to get into a close fight around the cities? Wouldn’t that put the civilians at risk?” Caas asked. “Every Dotok is inside a bunker cut into Mauna Loa right now. I’d rather beat the Xaros in orbit.”
“There are too many to beat in a fleet engagement,” Elias said. “We make them spread out over Earth. Divide and conquer. The cities are ready for a siege. They can hold until reinforcements come through the Crucible. Then we defeat them in detail.”
“One of the first things Colonel Carius taught us was to never depend on the enemy doing what you want him to do,” Caas said. “He referenced the human deity named Murphy, who confounds all plans.”
“He taught us to have a plan. Fight your plan. Adapt as soon as the plan doesn’t fit the situation,” Bodel said. “He never mentioned that to you?”
“This seems contradictory,” Ar’ri said. “Have a plan…but you don’t have to follow the plan.”
The Destrier rocked slightly.
Elias turned around and pointed a finger at Ar’ri. “There’s something you’ve got to learn, bean head. War is—”
A crimson beam burst through the floor and out the top of the transport ship. The beam swiped to the side, cutting through the hull. The Destrier ripped in two with a screech of metal and a howl of wind as freezing cold air blasted through the cargo bay. The forward section corkscrewed away, lost from view as the rear half of the ship with the armor tipped over and went into free fall.
Elias saw nothing but clouds through the half-severed opening behind him. His altimeter was dropping fast.
“This is the god Murphy at work,” Caas said.
“Jump. Use your packs to slow once you’re close to the ground.” Elias released his mag locks on the broken section of the transport and pulled against the handle to launch himself into the open air.
“We never trained for this!” Ar’ri said as he came out of the tail section.
“You have the rest of your life to figure it out.” Bodel keyed his jet pack and put some distance between him and Elias.
Elias looked down. Desert stretched beneath his feet, and he made out the highways surrounding Phoenix. Elias swung his head down and fell toward Earth even faster.
“You’ll reach terminal velocity in seconds,” Elias said. “Lock and load. The drone that killed the transport is still around.”
“Contact!” Caas shouted. “Drones to the…the—” She said something in Dotok and fired her forearm cannons. Elias followed the rounds’ path and saw ten dark points against the sky.
“Take ’em out.” Elias swung upright and put a hand over the top of his cannons, pressing down as he fired. The recoil bucked him backwards and sent his feet tumbling past his head. He activated his jet pack and stabilized his fall.
The battery levels on his jet pack decreased far more than was comfortable. He needed most of the charge to keep him from splattering across the Arizona landscape. He could use the jet pack for maybe a few more seconds and still survive the landing.
Short bursts from the other armor streaked toward the approaching Xaros.
A Xaros beam snapped past Elias. He twisted to the side and felt the next beam singe his
chest. He let off a burst and saw one of the drones explode into a cloud of fragments.
The drones sped up, stalks splayed out like the business end of a trident, heading right for the falling armor.
“Move!” Elias fired his jet pack and zoomed out of the way, nailing two drones as they tore through the air he’d just occupied.
There was a bright yellow light as Ar’ri burned his jet pack at full strength. His rotary cannon opened up and made quick work of the remaining drones.
“Got ’em!” Ar’ri said.
Elias twisted his body and tried to glide beneath the Dotok armor who was now many yards overhead, but Elias’ armor had the aerodynamic properties of a brick and barely moved.
“Ar’ri, how much charge do you have left?” Elias asked.
“Four…percent,” Ar’ri said. Elias could almost see the young man’s face as he realized that he had just saved his fellow armor but doomed himself to a landing he couldn’t survive. Ar’ri’s arms and legs flailed about as panic set in.
“Ar’ri, listen to me.” Elias glanced around and saw Caas close by, Bodel too far to matter. “Calm down and go flat. Your sister and I will be right there.” Elias pointed to Caas, saw her nod, then pointed to Ar’ri. Elias pointed his feet at the ground and fired his jet pack. He slowed his fall and got to Ar’ri. He grabbed Ar’ri by the waist and mag-locked his hands to the Dotok.
“Clamp on. Caas?” The other Dotok came toward them too quickly. Elias twisted himself and Ar’ri around, missing her as she sped past.
“Sorry!” Caas shouted.
“The ground is coming very fast,” Ar’ri said.
Elias didn’t bother to check the altimeter. His maneuver would save, or kill, them all.
He reached up and grabbed Caas’ hand. He pulled her in and she wrapped her arms over her brother’s shoulder.
“Caas, fire your pack—don’t let up—on my mark.” Elias glanced down and made out bushes and large rocks against the slope of a mountain directly beneath them.
Here goes nothing.
