by Tim Marquitz
“You really just want to be able to hear Choi whimper because he’s been left alone on the ship.”
“I heard that,” Choi answered. “At least there’s this thing called air up here. You might remember it being important.”
Albion shook his head. “Hold it down, both of you.” He reached over and tapped Lyana’s helmet, sneering at her. “Keep our suit telemetry onscreen, Choi, and stay put at your console. I don’t want to have to hunt you down if we need something.”
“Where the hell am I supposed to go, Captain?”
“We know you have a special infinity for the Captain’s private head, suing it when he’s not around,” Crate said with a grin.
“You better not—” He drew in a breath and caught himself. “Just stay put and pay attention.”
Yes, sir, and for the record, that’s Lyana that keeps stinking up your head, not me.”
She raised an eyebrow and growled at the helmsman. “One time, damn it. Now I’m some serial toilet defiler.”
“One time is all it takes,” Crate told her.
Albion slapped them both on the back of their helmets. “Regardless your bathroom proclivities, Choi, eyes open. You spot anything we need to know about, you push through the comms and let us know, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain turned to the rest of the crew and took a moment to make sure they were prepared. Ares stood hunched in front of the group, ready to roll out. His weapons were sheathed to avoid appearing hostile, not that it probably mattered, but they could be armed in an instant. The rest of the crew looked identical for the most part, each wearing the armored body suit with Covenant markings, which Albion had appropriated before leaving his commission, and each carried a plas-rifle in their arms, each with two backup blast-pistols set in holsters at their waist. Thinking them as ready as possible, Albion waved them forward. Ares started off, putting a little distance between them as they clambered over the uneven, sandy terrain toward the entryway to the bugs’ strange underground hideaway.
Despite the Excalibur having set them down in a relatively flat area, the landscape sloped just enough that the crew had to dig their toes in to keep from stumbling as they circled the stone wall that blocked their view of the entryway. By the time they reach the turning point, all of them breathed heavily into comms, a steady huff filling the background with static.
Albion called a halt at the edge of the natural wall and eased to the corner, peering around it to the massive door. “Clear,” he whispered, though he didn’t need to, the radio still broadcasting his voice just as loudly as if he hadn’t.
Despite no obstacles in their way, the captain hesitated before ushering his crew forward. He turned and stared off toward the mass of ships, more willing to call it a graveyard in his thoughts than aloud, and surveyed the field, making sure they wouldn’t be snuck up on. When he felt as confident as he could about it, paranoia refusing to let him relax entirely, he waved the team on, Ares darting across the sandy ground ahead of them. The bot went straight to the door’s entry panel and went to work. Albion and the others piled up behind him a few moments later, forming a semi-circle about the robot, guns trained, just in case.
“You sure you can do this without setting off alarms?” Albion asked the bot for the fifth time since they’d decided on this course of action.
“Of course,” Ares replied, deadpan voice conveying far more sarcasm that the captain would have preferred.
Lyana chuckled and, though she didn’t join in, Mara flashed a broad grin. Albion ignored them and inched toward the door. “Choi, I need a pinpoint scan for lifeforms just ahead of our location. Short burst, hit and quit.” As much as he didn’t want to risk the Xebedons picking up scanner activity on the supposedly dead planet, he wanted to walk into a bug squadron just the other side of the door even less.
“Oh…shit,” Choi’s answer came back, his voice trembling. “You’re not going to believe this, Captain.”
“I promise I will, now just tell me the results.”
“Scanners are registering upwards of ten thousand lifeforms in there.”
Choi’s revelation slammed into Albion, and he felt his legs wobble beneath him. “Ten thousand?”
The crew stared at him, aghast, their faces paling behind their visors.
“Yes, sir. Ten thousand,” Choi repeated. “I did not, however, pick up any bugs nearby, though, with such a shallow scan, the odds of it sorting human from Xebedon is slim to none. Still, the numbers are right, sir.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of people, sir,” Randall said, stating the obvious.
Albion heard Mara struggling to catch her breath over the comms. He offered her a resolute nod, hoping to calm her, but he doubted anything but getting her crew back would accomplish that. They were part of that ten thousand souls the aliens had captured and collected there for purposes Albion didn’t even want to consider. Vance had been right when he said the Xebedon didn’t take hostages. They never had before, killing anyone they came across, so to imagine what they might use people for now that they were taking hostages, was simply too much for Albion to process.
“Open the door,” he told Ares. Albion knew to expect bugs inside, seeing how he’d watched maybe a dozen of them escort the last batch of prisoners inside, but as long as he wasn’t walking into a gunfight just the other side of the door, he could handle that,
Ares, having done as ordered, skittered in front of the doorway as it slid open, great metal slabs disappearing into the mountain on either side of the entryway. The bot started forward without hesitation, and Albion was glad of that. It gave him the impetus to follow after, defeating his natural hesitance before it could settle in. The rest of the crew must have felt the same as they shuffled behind him, remembering to spread out to make the group a more difficult target.
Once inside the huge foyer, the doors eased shut behind them, sealing out the reddish glow that had followed them since they set foot on the planet. Ares’s legs clattered on the stone floor, and Albion marveled at how smooth it was, the entryway having been bored into the mountain with unerring precision. He wondered if the bugs had done it or whether it had been something created by the previous inhabitants in an effort to survive the harsh planet, but he guessed it didn’t matter who created it. It was impressive, regardless.
The smooth corridor was easily a dozen meters wide, and it mimicked that with its height. In the dim lighting, small crystals embedded in the walls along the pathway, Albion could barely pick out the ceiling in the gloom. With absolutely no variation in design, the corridor jutted before them a good three hundred yards before what looked like a metal rail broke the monotony. Ares already headed that direction, gaining ground as Albion and the others fell behind, trepidation making their steps heavy.
Albion watched as the bot reached the railing without issue, and he waved the rest of the crew on, urging them to catch up. A few moments later, Albion realized it was a railing, set before what appeared to be a broad balcony. The solid wall continued on the right, but a large ramp sloped downward on the left, disappearing into the unknown. Albion came over to stand beside Ares as he looked out over the balcony, and followed the bot’s example. He immediately wished he hadn’t.
Albion’s stomach knotted, and he felt his face flush, his breath fogging his visor and forcing the suit environmentals to kick it up a notch to clear his vision. He wished it hadn’t. Behind him, his crew getting the first glimpse of what lay beyond the railing, they muttered and gasped into the comms, their combined disgust palpable.
“Oh…” Randall muttered, clearly unable to say anything more.
Lyana stood frozen in place while Mara pressed her hand to her visor, eyes wide as they took in the horror below. Both clasped the rail just as Albion did.
Unable to comprehend what he saw, the captain just stared for a moment, his brain slowly taking everything in and tearing it down into manageable bites. There, spread out as far as Albion could see, were row
upon row of what looked like coffins stood on their end. They rose four high, and Albion could easily see their number being ten thousand or more. Even from their vantage point, he could see the open-eyed faces of the coffins’ inhabitants, staring out at nothing, arms rigid at their sides.
A system of rails ran the length of the ceiling, mag-hooks dangling, waiting to be put to use lifting the clear, glass coffins. One the floor of the massive chamber, a virtual army of multi-limbed bots like Ares clambered about, moving from coffin to coffin, plugging in and running some sort of diagnostics Albion wouldn’t understand.
“Stasis chambers,” Crate told them, answering their unspoken question as to what the supposed coffins were. “They’re keeping the hostages alive.”
Mara gasped, her gloves creaking against the railing. “We need to get them out of there.”
“We need to examine the stasis chambers first,” Albion said, understanding the daggers she glared at him but ignoring them all the same. “We don’t have any clue what shape these people are in, or why they’re in those things. Until we figure that out, we can’t just start pulling plugs. There’s no telling what we might cause to happen.”
Mara sneered but she conceded a moment later with a nod. “Let’s go.”
Albion clasped her shoulder and kept her from walking off, raising a finger to ward off the coming rebuke before she could even start.
“Ares, will these other battle bots cause us problems.”
No, Captain,” Ares answered. “And they are med bots, not battle bots. They will not operate outside of their programmed mission parameters and should simply ignore us.”
“Unless their mission parameters are to kill nosy humans poking into their business.”
“There is that.” Ares attempted an awkward shrug.
Albion shook his head and made his decision. “Come on, people, let’s go. The more time we spend debating, the more likely were going to get caught.” He settled his rifle comfortably in his hands and started off. Ares shot ahead of him, and the rest of the crew walked alongside, Mara forcing Albion to speed his pace or let her get ahead of him.
They made their way down the ramp and veered right into the chamber, Albion feeling the vastness of the place as it loomed all around. Their footsteps echoed loudly as they walked, and the captain cringed but nothing jumped out at them from the rows of stasis chambers.
Once down among the rows of crystalline chambers, the presence of its inhabitants was nearly overwhelming. People from all across allied space had been gathered there, heedless of their race, creed, or beliefs. The bugs had made no distinction. Faces frozen in perpetual surprised stared out at them as they drew closer, the suit environmentals adjusting to warm the crew in the frigid temperature that permeated the room Albion had come to think of as a warehouse, its stored contents sadly human.
They came to the first of the chambers, a med bot adjusting its route to step around them, and they got their first close-up glimpse of one of the hostages. Naked, the man was strapped into the stasis chamber at the wrists and ankles, a restraining strap run across his forehead to keep his head upright. His skin looked icy, a sparkling sheen reflecting the light. There was no indication of life in his dark eyes, but his chest rose and fell with regularity, albeit both slow and shallow.
They moved to the chamber beside his and the story was the same, only it was a woman this time. Her eyes were green, two emeralds shining in their sockets, but she, too, stared forward without any indication that she was present mentally.
Crate ran a hand across the chamber’s control panel and pulled up what Albion presumed was its diagnostics. The engineer confirmed that a moment later.
“She’s alive, trapped in stasis as if she were traveling a long distance, the system designed to keep her from aging or breaking down on her journey.”
“Ancient tech?” Randall asked.
Crate nodded. “Indeed. This is what they used before hyperdrives were invented. It’s how many of our ancestors colonized their first planets.”
“Which likely means these chambers were already here when the bugs showed up,” Albion said.
“Most likely. This could have been something the settlers here thought up to keep them healthy in this planet’s hostile environment.” He shrugged. “Regardless, it’s keeping the people alive.”
“I need to find my crew,” Mara said, starting off down the row, her gaze shifting from one chamber to the next, craning her neck to see the ones stacked at the top.
Right then, a mag-hook rolled to a top above them and locked onto one of the stasis chambers with a thump. The crystal tube shuddered, and then was lifted in the air, the hook shooting down the rail toward the back end of the warehouse. A wall stood between that section and the one they stood in, its apex ending short of the ceiling, giving the railway direct access to the room beyond.
“We need to find out what’s back there,” Crate said, watching the stasis chamber being lowered until it was out of sight behind the wall. “That might tell us what we need to know.”
Everyone seemed to agree. They started that direction, heavy footsteps showing the weight of their concern. The quiet hum of machinery penetrated their helmets, driving them on. Mara continued her search for her crew, and Albion found himself joining in despite not knowing what any of her captured people looked like. Still, it felt like the right thing to do. Hundreds of faces stared out at them as they passed, their frozen stares penetrating, each chamber pounding another nail of sorrow into his chest. He had no idea what the aliens could possibly want with all these people, and he certainly couldn’t imagine why they would need to throw them in stasis outside of a need to keep them docile, easy to control. Still, for a species who’d never been anything but bent on destruction, the sheer scale of this production was impressive in the most morbid of ways.
After a while, Albion couldn’t look any longer, and he turned his gaze to the floor as they walked on. Then, just as they neared the dividing wall, Choi’s voice rang in his ears.
“Incoming bugs,” he called out, the chill in his voice matching the frost in the air.
Albion lifted his gaze just in time to see a dozen bugs step out from behind the divider. They skittered to a halt, likely as surprised to see the erupted from them, and the bugs hunkered down and charged.
Fifteen
Dev-ji 482
Ares met the enemy first.
The battle bot wasted no time engaging, weapons drawn and set to work. Not known for their surprise, the bugs kept coming, heedless of the bot’s intent. The first of the bugs was shredded, daring to take on Ares head on. Green goo erupted, trailing in the air as the bot cut the alien into pieces, chunks of shiny carapace clattering on the stone floor.
“Spread out and fire,” Albion shouted, glad to see his crew respond without delay.
Lyana scored a quick kill, catching the first of the bugs that flowed around Ares and blowing a hole through its head. It stumbled and fell flat, its companions clambering over it without consideration, their sharpened limbs only adding to the damage.
Albion moved alongside Mara, and the two of them killed another, both blasting it in its belly and leaving scorching holes they could see through. Crate and Randall held the left flank, loosing burst after burst of gleaming blue energy upon the wall of bugs scurrying their direction.
Ares tore through two more, leaving bits and pieces of them littering the aisle between the stasis chambers and making the floor sick with alien guts. The bot spun about and grabbed another of the Xebedon and thrust a saw through its back. It skreeed and thrashed, impaled and ripping itself up inside in its efforts to be free.
Albion shot one of the aliens point blank in the chest as it closed on him, smoke and sparks obscuring his vision for an instant. The bug slammed into him and drove him backward, and Albion fired again, only then realizing the thing was dead, only momentum having carried it into him. He sighed and wiped the gooey spatter from his visor. It was then he saw Crate be struck
and knocked down, landing on his back. Albion spun to fire on the bug, but Randall was there first, stepping in and blocking Albion’s shot.
“Down, Ensign!” Albion cried out.
But Randall held his ground and fired. To his credit, the alien shuddered with the blow, Randall’s blast hitting it in the upper chest. It staggered back as he shot it again, dropping the alien, but it wasn’t the only one still standing.
Focused on the one in his sights, neither Randall nor Albion saw the second one until it was too late.
The bug dropped low and plowed into Randall, the kid swinging his weapon around too late. There was a sharp crunch, and Albion watched in horror as Randall’s leg bent backward under the pressure of the bug. The kid screamed, his voice roaring through the comms before the system calibrated the volume, and Randall crumpled.
Bile stinging the back of his throat, Albion ran for Randall, raising his rifle to blast the offending bug to pieces but, in all its thrashing, the shot wasn’t there. Albion howled as he closed the distance, determined to rip the alien off Randall if he had to use his bare hands.
The entire time, the bug tore at Randall, shredding his armor and the flesh beneath. Founts of blood spewed from the wounds the bug inflicted, a crimson rain covering the two in warm fluid, each blow a step closer to Randall’s death. Albion gritted his teeth as he reached the bug, only Crate was there first.
The engineer, his bluish face dotted with red, slid up beside Randall and pressed the barrel of his rifle between the kid and the alien. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger and blew the bug into the air. Albion followed by pinning it to the wall and blasting smoking holes all through it. At least, when Albion let loose of the trigger, the alien collapsed, little more than a skeletal frame surrounding the gaping midsection.
The creature dead, he turned to do the same to more only to see Ares finish off the last of the bugs, tearing its limbs off and hurling them across the room. If Albion didn’t know better, the bot incapable of true emotion, he would have sworn it was anger fueling Ares’s destruction of his former master.
