The Lost Voyager: A Carson March Space Opera

by A. C. Hadfield

  “Can you take the drone down there?” Adira asked.

  “Not if we want to risk losing it,” Tulula said. “They were designed for high-level observation. I’d be flying blind and the AI won’t work in such a confined space.”

  Mach grunted out of his chair. “Sanchez, are you feeling okay?”

  “Fine, all things considered. Do you want me to suit up?”

  “No, you’re not up to it,” Mach said, hating the very words when it concerned his old friend. There was just something so tragic for a man like Ernesto Sanchez to lose his strength and vigor; it made him who he is… was.

  “Like hell I’m not… Captain,” Sanchez retorted as he stood up and stared Mach down. “I can still whip your ass if I need to, illness or not. Now I’m here to do a job, not be coddled in cotton wool. I’m suiting up and going out there whether you like it or not—unless you think you can stop me?”

  Mach couldn’t help but laugh—this was his old friend: rebellious to the end. For decades he had worked as a gunrunner and assorted rogue, working within and around the CW laws. He never let anything stop him from doing what he wanted to do if he believed it was the right thing, and Mach knew that he couldn’t really stop him now, even if he wanted to.

  “Fine,” Mach said. “But no damned heroics or sacrifices, understood? You follow my command at all times.”

  “Just try to keep up,” Sanchez said with a smirk. “I don’t have long and you’ll be useless without me.”

  Tulula shared a concerned look with Mach. He just gave her a small nod as if communicating that he would indeed keep an eye on Sanchez and look out for him. “Adira, you’re coming too.” Mach glanced at the screen again, scanning the ravine and top of the surrounding forest. “Take us down to the plateau.”

  Mach attached black thruster blocks to each of his forearms. As fun as rock climbing could be, he preferred a technology-assisted descent. Adira and Sanchez were already prepared and waiting by the airlock. They all wore helmets to maintain a good level of mental and physical agility.

  Out of the window, the ground closed to within meters. The Intrepid’s thrusters blasted small stones and dust along the plateau, sending a thin gray cloud over the thrashing canopy below, and it bumped against the rock.

  “We’ll take the weapons from here,” Tulula said over the comm. “We’re not picking up any signs of movement.”

  “Let me know if you see anything,” Mach said, still conscious that something had blasted a hole in the facility roof on Noven Beta and created a pit of human bodies. “Keep the channel open in case we need anything.”

  “We’ve got your back,” Lassea said.

  Mach tried to avoid sounding like he was teaching the crew to suck eggs. At times like this it was unavoidable. As captain he had to confirm individual roles for an operation to avoid any confusion.

  Sanchez pressed the glass plate to open the airlock door. It thrust out and slid to the side with pneumatic hiss. The graphite ramp folded out and clanked against the stone below. He pulled a laser from his hip holster, raised it, and stepped outside.

  Mach enjoyed watching Sanchez being assertive again. Now they had an immediate objective, it seemed to have a positive effect and focused the big man’s mind away from the symbiosite.

  Adira glanced over her shoulder at Mach. He nodded, shouldered his Stinger and followed. The temperature display on his HUD increased to tropical levels and the humidity registered at ninety-four percent.

  The left-hand edge of the crevice lay fifty meters to their right up a shallow slope. Mach crossed the open ground and swept his rifle across the skyline. He reached the edge and checked his smart-screen, confirming they had the right location.

  None of the walls betrayed a sign of a ship crashing and the top of all of the eight overhangs he could see below, to a depth of at least one hundred meters, didn’t have a single scrap of debris on them.

  Adira peered into darkness. “I suppose they could’ve taken the beacon out and set up camp down here?”

  “It’s possible, but why?”

  “Predators in the forest,” Sanchez said. “We don’t know the state of Voyager either, but I’m sure it didn’t come down here.”

  “I’m with you on that,” Mach said. “Ready to take a look?”

  Adira jumped off the edge of the crevice. She raised both elbows, engaged her thrusters and landed softly on an overhang thirty meters below.

  Mach and Sanchez both leaped down. The hunter gave him a knowing look. He still hadn’t lost his sense of competition and was daring Mach to hit his thrusters first in a three-second game of chicken.

  They dropped for two seconds and both hit the pressure pads at the same time, slowing their descent but not enough to stop their boots thumping against the overhang.

  Sanchez smiled. “You were a millisecond before me.”

  Adira rolled her eyes. “Grow up. You’ll have plenty of time to fool around after we’ve destroyed the super weapon.”

  “No, I won’t,” Sanchez replied. “If this is my last job, I’m making sure I—”

  A blinding light flashed through the crevice and a low electronic pulse echoed along the walls. The overhang jerked up, tilted and fell from below Mach’s feet. All three of them dropped, following a large slab of rock toward the bottom of the crevice. It smashed against an overhang below and broke it free.

  The area filled with gritty dust that sprayed against Mach’s visor, obscuring his vision. He engaged his thrusters to steady his fall, tilted toward the opposite side of the crevice, and landed on a five-meter-wide overhang.

  Sanchez dropped next to him at a run and slammed into the rock wall. Adira thrust out of the gloomy shroud below and her boots hit the ground with a little more grace.

  “What the hell was that?” Sanchez said and pointed his laser over the edge.

  “No idea, but it’s not friendly,” Mach said and aimed into the gloom. “We need to take cover.”

  “Down there.” Adira pointed to the opposite wall where a large chunk of rock had broken away, exposing a dark cave.

  Mach raced through options in his mind. Going back seemed like the best idea. Whatever they faced, it would be easier with the Intrepid’s weapons.

  A high-pitched whine filled the air. Mach instinctively ducked.

  The outline of a circular shape rose through the dusty gloom at pace. A chrome platform, four meters in diameter, roared past the overhang and stopped twenty meters above them. The heat from its red antigravity engines sent the temperature in Mach’s HUD racing up.

  Four stubby barrels, on spherical turrets, were attached around the edges of the craft. They swiveled up and fired. White bolts blasted from each and slammed into the drone still hovering over the crevice.

  Flames shot into the clear blue sky. The drone veered to the left and disappeared from view. A loud crash of metal against rock followed immediately after.

  Mach knew they had to do something quickly. The option of returning to the ship was firmly off the agenda, as it meant passing a new and dangerous enemy.

  The platform’s barrels swiveled in the direction of the overhang and readied to fire once more.

  Chapter 11

  Sanchez and Adira leaped off the side of the rock and dropped into the dusty darkness below. Mach took a deep breath and followed. He thumbed the thrusters’ pressure pads with just enough force to avoid breaking his legs if he hit another overhang or the bottom of the crevice.

  The platform fired. Two bolts slammed into the rough wall a couple of meters above Mach’s head. Chunks of rock battered against his suit, and the force of the blasts threw him across the thirty-meter-wide gap toward the opposite wall.

  Mach grimaced after his back slammed against it. He focused on steadying his descent. Pain screamed from his thigh and chest after both took hits. The platform’s circular red engines dulled as it followed him deeper, away from the safety of the Intrepid.

  Sanchez and Adira raced across the glistening ground belo
w, toward a cave entrance. The platform fired again. Its bolts roared past Mach’s left shoulder and blasted a gouge out of a small overhang.

  Debris spat in all directions. Mach’s boots hit the ground and he immediately sprinted to his left, splashing through a shallow pool in the direction of two thin blue helmet lights inside the cave. He dived in and skidded across the smooth surface on his belly. A boom echoed outside. Sanchez and Adira both leaned away as water and shards of stone sprayed through the cave’s entrance.

  Red light from the platform’s engines brightened the foot of the crevice.

  “There’s your beacon,” Sanchez said and pointed outside.

  Mach glanced back. A thin metallic tube protruded from the ground. Not like any type of beacon Voyager would carry. It was alien tech, leading to the obvious conclusion that they had walked into a trap. Somebody or something had cloned the distress signal and drew them in. Not great news, but it also meant whoever did it knew the location of the ship.

  “This way,” Adira said, heading into the gloom.

  Mach activated his helmet light, scrambled to his feet, and followed her deeper into the cave. He flashed his beam around the dark brown ceiling and walls and recognized horizontal marks where mining tools had worked against the rock. Adira and Sanchez disappeared to the right.

  “Ground team, we’ve lost the drone,” Tulula said through the comm, crackling through the swirling static. “Are you okay?”

  “Okay’s not the word I’d use,” Mach said. He rounded the bend and found the other two with their backs against the wall. “There’s a weapons platform in the crevice. Unknown tech. Take off and fire. Keep an eye on the tracking screen.”

  “Use lasers,” Sanchez added. “We don’t know how stable it is down here.”

  “Roger that,” Tulula replied. “Stay safe. We’ll sort this out.”

  A thin beam of light punched through the tunnel, moving along the ceiling in a series of jerky movements. The low electric hum from the platform’s engines echoed along the walls.

  Mach headed around another dogleg, making sure they would avoid the consequences of a bolt being fired down it. His left boot crunched against something on the ground. He raised it to one side, revealing fragments of white shell identical in appearance to the kind they’d seen on Noven Beta.

  “They’ve been here too,” Mach said and shouldered his Stinger. “Anything moves in here, we hit it.”

  Sanchez narrowed his eyes. “Seems like we’re dealing with a hierarchy of creatures here, or perhaps multiple species working together.”

  “Whatever we’re facing, we’re no use stuck down here,” Adira said.

  She raised her smart-screen and sent out a tracer laser. A thin red line bounced along the walls ahead, searching for space to proceed while pinging information back to create a 3D route map.

  A voice came over Mach’s helmet’s speaker, distorted by static hiss.

  “Say again,” Mach said.

  Nobody replied.

  An explosion ripped through the tunnel, sending everyone crashing to the ground.

  Mach swept the dust off his visor. They had little choice but to proceed, until the Intrepid could deal with the threat. He continued forward at a faster pace, confident that Lassea and Tulula would deal with the platform. He had the two best fighters on the ground with him, although it struck him that this might be the last time he could comfort himself with their presence during a mission.

  The tunnel opened into a cathedral-high cavern. Fluorescent green stalactites hung from the ceiling, giving the area a dull ambience. Water trickled down the walls at several points into small dark pools around the edges. Boulders littered the surface, with thousands of pieces of broken shell between them. A small mound in the left corner glinted as Mach flashed his light past it.

  Adira moved by his side. “There’s a passage in the far corner. It loops back around and comes out halfway up the crevice.”

  Mach checked his thruster reading. He only had two seconds of juice left. Not nearly enough to ascend back to the surface. “We’ll need them to drop a line.”

  “If no other machines turn up to blast us out of the sky,” Sanchez said.

  Mach nodded and climbed over a rock. He searched the floor for any signs of movement and headed for a dark space behind the mound. Sanchez groaned after him and his boots thumped heavily against the rock. The big man seemed to be losing his sparkle by the hour. Babcock needed to come up with a solution fast.

  After crossing the cavern halfway, snaking around boulders and crushing pieces of shell, Mach slowly approached the foot of the mound. Several bones protruded from the gray translucent surface. It looked like a pile of skeletons set in jelly. He reached out a glove and brushed it across the surface. A sticky, stringy, mucus-like substance dangled from his index finger and dripped between his boots.

  Adira scanned her wrist across the top and took snapshots. “The bones in the quarry weren’t like this,” she said.

  “They probably weren’t as fresh,” Mach said. “I’m guessing this was their second port of call.”

  “Find who brought them and we find Voyager,” Sanchez said.

  “If I expected somebody to come after it, I’d set a trap too,” Mach said. “It’ll only get harder when we get closer.”

  Sanchez shrugged and turned away. “I ain’t got a lot to lose.”

  One skull, sticking out of the side of the mound, was reptilian in shape, with a long snout and thin jaw, identical to the local wildlife included in OreCorp’s description of Noven Alpha. Babcock’s theory of reproduction rates matched what they were seeing: a plague species that devoured planets. The problem was that every documented insect like this never evolved to owning gun platforms.

  They were either being deployed by an alien race for whatever reason, or a new colonizing species were on the edge of the Salus Sphere.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Adira said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  She raised her laser, swept it around the chamber, and headed for the dark passage. Mach paused for a moment, staring at the sticky mess, allowing Sanchez to follow Adira through a narrow cave to their left. He wanted to check exactly how badly the hunter moved. The teams would have to be switched around if he wasn’t fit for active assignments.

  Rough stone steps were cut into the ground, rising away from the cavern in a shallow ascending spiral. Chunky metal clips held a filthy green cable in place along the wall. Every ten meters or so, dusty plastic light fittings sat on top of it.

  Sanchez propped a hand against the carved stone to support himself as he grunted up each step. Adira, nimble on her feet, kept pausing and looking back. Mach thought she had similar concerns and decided to discuss it with her later.

  Dull natural light shone through a gap above. Adira paused in front of the last few steps and crouched against the wall. Mach and Sanchez moved alongside her. They edged together up the last few steps, weapons raised. Two metal posts at either side of the entrance had the twisted rusty remains of a metal bridge dangling down the sheer drop outside.

  A thin mist of water sprayed upward, created by the downdraft from the platform’s engines. It hovered at the foot of the crevice, thirty meters below. All four cannons pointed at the ground. A shaft of bright sunshine poked between the overhangs and reflected off its rotating chrome top.

  “Lassea, Tulula, can you hear me?” Mach said.

  “We thought you were dead!” Lassea said. “We’re just coming back around and will be in a position to fire in a minute.”

  “I’ll visually check for places of vulnerability and give you a fix with my laser.”

  “What the hell is it?”

  “Weapons platform with four cannons,” Mach said. “It’s not Axis Combine. You’ve got a shot, but you need to be quick.”

  “We’re picking up nothing on the scanners,” Tulula said, “apart from the distress signal.”

  “It’s a clone,” Sanchez said. “Ignore it.�
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  “I’ll start analyzing right away,” Babcock said through the comm. “We might be facing some jamming and interference.”

  Mach ushered the other two away from the entrance and they retreated several steps. He slung his Stinger, grabbed the laser from his belt, and listened for Intrepid’s roar.

  The platform’s engine noise increased. Mach crawled forward again and looked down. It rose slowly and edged around an overhang at a slight tilt.

  A distant overhead whine grew louder.

  Two of the platform’s cannons swung skyward.

  “I’ll draw its fire and give Tulula a clear shot,” Mach said. “Stay back.”

  “It’ll blow the hell out of the tunnel,” Sanchez said.

  Mach kept his focus on the platform below. It scanned every inch of rock as it made its way up the crevice.

  “Lassea, how close?” Mach asked.

  “Five seconds,” she replied.

  “Ready with lasers,” Tulula said.

  The shaft of light in the crevice disappeared, blocked out by the Intrepid’s arrival. Mach took a deep breath and thrust out his laser. He fired at a black disc in the center of the platform. It immediately swung its other two cannons in the direction of the tunnel entrance and both muzzles flashed.

  Mach dived back and rolled down the spiral stairs until he crashed into Sanchez’s stocky frame. The big man stopped him dead. Adira hunched to his side with her arms wrapped around her helmet.

  A loud boom shook the tunnel. Dust filled the air.

  The triple electronic snap of Intrepid’s lasers firing rang through the crevice, immediately followed by a second explosion.

  Three seconds later, metal crashed against rock, followed by silence.

  Adira crept up toward the entrance and rounded the corner.

  “The heat signature’s stopped moving and intensified,” Tulula said. “Have you got a visual?”

  “Hit confirmed,” Adira said. “Nice work.”