Titan (Old Ironsides Book 2)

by Dean Crawford

  Terok stared at the creature on the bed next to him as he saw the second tendril crawl up onto the bed next to his face.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ he gasped.

  The reply came a moment later, just as Terok felt something cold and hard press against his ear.

  ‘I know.’

  A fierce white pain seared Terok’s ear and burst like an explosive inside his skull and he opened his mouth to scream as he felt the hideous creature burrow remorselessly into his brain.

  ***

  XX

  CSS Titan

  Admiral Marshall walked back onto the command platform in time to see Lieutenant Foxx and Detective Allen dash onto the bridge.

  ‘Admiral,’ Foxx said, ‘we have a problem.’

  ‘I have several,’ Marshall said wearily, ‘don’t tell me that you’re going to add to the list.’

  ‘We believe that there is a conspiracy to initiate a prison riot on Tethys Gaol.’

  ‘Riot?’ Marshall echoed. ‘What the hell for, there’s nowhere for the prisoners to go and they’d never get out of those blocks anyway.’

  ‘They will if they’re armed,’ Detective Allen insisted. ‘We have evidence that an Officer Anthony Ricard was responsible for transporting weapons between Tethys and Polaris Station. He had access to the weapons during that time, and may have altered their programming.’

  ‘Altered it how?’

  ‘We’re not certain yet,’ Foxx admitted, ‘but it appears that Ricard may have been altering or removing the security chips that prevent inmates and civilians from firing the weapons, while also exchanging them for non–military weapons and smuggling MM–15 plasma pistols planet–side for sale.’

  Marshall froze in motion as he considered this. ‘If the prisoners riot, you think they’ll try to take over the prison’s armory?’

  ‘Or even the guard’s weapons,’ Foxx confirmed. ‘ID chips control who is able to fire a given weapon. Inmates can’t use them because they won’t respond to an unknown DNA, but if the chips have been altered to accept any user then the inmates could create hell. If we don’t get in there and stop them they could take over the gaol. That’s hundreds of high–security inmates, all of them looking for a way off the prison to freedom. If they have hostages…’

  ‘They’ll be able to bargain,’ Marshall nodded as he understood the urgency and turned to the communications officer. ‘Contact the Ayleeans and tell them that we’ll shortly be preparing their brethren for transport to their ship, and we need them to drop their jamming so that…’

  ‘Incoming signal, super–luminal bow shock at fifty thousand meters!’

  Admiral Marshall barely had time to think as the alert was cried across the bridge, let alone react to the Tactical Officer’s warning as every pair of eyes on the bridge swivelled to look at the main display screen.

  Fifty thousand meters, just fifty kilometres away, was less than the blink of an eye at super–luminal velocity, a fraction of a second for Marshall’s all–too–human brain to calculate a response in an instant of time and thought. Rapid approach, an ambush of some kind entirely similar to that which had been suffered by their Ayleean captors. Titan’s sensors were capable of detecting an Ayleean vessel’s approach at a hundred times that distance, meaning they were facing an unknown technology that was going to be upon them at the same moment that Marshall’s brain was able to process the fact that they were there at all.

  Words spilled from the admiral’s lips without conscious thought, as though he were listening to somebody else speaking.

  ‘Dive, all shields up and fire all cannons at the first visible threat!!’

  Titan went into an immediate dive, her broad bow dropping as the helmsman responded to the command with the speed of thought, the Ayleean cruiser nearby likewise diving away from the new arrival as her escorting frigates split up to bring their weapons to bear. Titan’s shields flickered into life even as Marshall saw on the main screen a spherical distortion of the star fields as the fabric of space–time was bulged outward by the approaching vessel and it suddenly rocketed into sight with a blinding flare of white light.

  Titan’s starboard plasma cannons opened up even before Marshall’s brain had processed the incredible sight that lay before him. For the first time in human history an unequivocal encounter between human beings and an undeniably extra–terrestrial race had occurred, and mankind’s first action had been to open fire upon that race with some of the most powerful weapons ever created by human hands. Schmidt’s words echoed through Marshall’s mind as he watched the plasma charges burst into view on the screen like new born stars and zip with phenomenal speed across the space between Titan and the new arrival.

  Fear and prejudice are the currency of mankind, to lash out far easier than to reach out.

  The ship was vast, probably twice Titan’s length and constructed in a way that defied all natural instincts. Marshall gazed upon a form so utterly strange that he struggled to actually identify what he was looking at.

  The entire vessel appeared to be being encased in some kind of gel that crept swiftly across its surface, a vast and glossy bubble of material that conformed to the shape of the ship within like a set of visible shields while dimly reflecting the star fields, Saturn and the plasma blasts soaring toward it. Within the strange substance was entombed a recognizably mechanical and metallic spacecraft that was none the less shaped nothing like either a fleet warship or an Ayleean cruiser. Long and slender, gracefully tapered at the bow and stern, it had the appearance of a stretched bullet except for the ragged gashes down the hull from which the bizarre gel oozed in vast quantities. As the ship loomed closer Marshall could see that its hull was constructed from what looked like a twisted bundle of giant braided cables, each as thick as fifty men and wrapping around each other like gigantic metal snakes, catching the light from Saturn’s glow as it turned.

  From the huge hull burst striations of the shimmering gel, reaching out like gigantic probing icicles across the freezing vacuum of space toward Titan, as though the vessel was entrapped within the tentacles of some tremendous sea creature.

  The plasma bursts from Titan’s guns smashed into the hull and Marshall squinted as titanic explosions rocked the alien ship. Hull plating was ripped from the superstructure in tremendous blasts, the ship riven with brilliant orange and red flares as power conduits and fuel lines were ignited by the massive volumes of energy being dumped into the ship’s interior.

  The writhing, immense tentacles of icy material receded as though recoiling from the blasts as the ship rolled away from the onslaught and drifted by through the blackness, her shattered form only visible in the explosions and the reflections of Titan’s own exterior lights as the entire fleet passed into Saturn’s immense shadow.

  A roar of cheers went up from the crew even as Marshall realized that they had no true idea of whether this ship was even a foe. He consoled himself that they had chosen, whoever they were, to rush directly into another species’ space without warning and come out of super–luminal travel in what could only be interpreted as an ambush attack.

  ‘Direct hits to main hull and aft superstructure!’ Olsen reported as he scanned the tactical displays. ‘We’re getting fluctuating power readings from within, looks like they’re already pretty badly beaten up!’

  A sudden, whining, screeching noise deafened the admiral and he threw his hands to his ears as the communications officer scrambled on her work station to shut off the feed. The infernal noise died down into the background as Marshall called across to her, his ears still ringing.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘Some kind of jamming signal from the alien vessel,’ the officer replied, her own expression twisted with pain from the awful cacophony. ‘It’s blocking everything, all frequencies. It’ll take time to push through it.’

  Marshall frowned as he saw the ship once again being fully encased now in the strange gel. The fires from the plasma blasts were swiftly extingu
ished as the gel consumed the raging firestorms across the gargantuan hull. He moved closer to the screen and saw the deep gashes in the ship’s hull more clearly, could see the superstructure within, lights functioning despite the massive internal damage.

  ‘You getting any life forms?’ he asked the communications officer.

  The officer stared at her screens in amazement as she replied.

  ‘Massive responses,’ she confirmed. ‘It’s literally full of life.’

  Marshall looked at the substance enclosing the ship and then barked a command.

  ‘Helm, full astern, get us away from her!’

  The ship responded instantly, reversing thrust and beginning to turn away from the new arrival as Marshall whirled to the Tactical Officer.

  ‘Full scans of her on all wavelengths!’ he ordered.

  ‘Aye sir!’

  The Executive Officer moved to Marshall’s side. ‘What is it?’

  Marshall gripped the command rail as he looked at the alien vessel before them.

  ‘The ship’s not the enemy,’ he said simply. ‘Whatever it’s encased in, that’s our enemy.’

  Olsen stepped forward, squinting at the screen. ‘What do you think it is?’

  Marshall shook his head. In flight school many decades before, when he had been a newly minted fleet officer and had just joined a squadron of Razor fighters based out of Polaris Station, he and his fellow pilots had been given a briefing on what to expect if they ever encountered an alien species. Although such an event had not occurred in Marshall’s long career until now, it had been clear from day one of his training that CSS expected contact to occur eventually.

  There had long been rumors of spurious signals emanating from distant corners of the Local Group, the collective name for a number of galaxies scattered across deep space beyond the Milky Way, with its nearest neighbour, Andromeda, gaining the greatest attention. Larger and older than mankind’s natal galaxy, there would have been more time for third–generation stars to form, and thus longer for the planets they harbored to develop intelligent life and for that life to embark on an inevitable journey to the stars.

  Marshall could not remember all of the fascinating briefing, but one thing that had been made clear was that in all likelihood, the first encounter between man and a truly extra–terrestrial species would be one where neither side quite understood what they were looking at.

  ‘Get Schmidt up here, right now.’

  Olsen put out a call and moments later Schmidt shimmered genie–like into view on the bridge.

  ‘Captain,’ he began, ‘Were the capsule signals checked against our…’

  ‘Forget them,’ Marshall cut him off as he gestured with a nod to the main display screen, ‘we’ve got a bigger problem.’

  Schmidt turned and then froze in motion. He watched the screen for a long moment and then spoke softly.

  ‘May I have access to the tactical scans?’

  Marshall nodded to the relevant officer, and Schmidt’s eyes closed and his projection pulsed softly as he absorbed the vast reams of data being processed by Titan’s sensors.

  Schmidt opened his eyes as he stared again at the screen, his voice soft but carrying to every corner of the bridge.

  ‘It’s alive.’

  ‘It’s what?’ Olsen asked.

  Schmidt moved to the command platform to get a better look at the visual display.

  ‘It’s biological,’ he said, almost it seemed in awe. ‘Life signs are permeating every single inch of the interior of that vessel, which matches no known human endeavour.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that it’s a parasite of some kind.’

  ‘Parasite?’ Olsen echoed, finding Schmidt’s analogy somewhat distasteful. ‘You mean that ship’s been infected with something?’

  ‘That’s why I pulled Titan back after the first salvo,’ Marshall replied for the doctor. ‘Looked to me that we haven’t encountered one alien species, but two.’

  ‘Or more correctly, one alien species and another species’ spacecraft,’ Schmidt corrected. ‘I’m detecting spectrographic evidence of titanium, magnesium and carbon in the hull, common materials with which we’re all familiar. She was built by a species not unlike our own, but now is home to…, that.’

  Marshall managed a brief flash of humor. ‘But I thought that all species had feelings, doctor, that there was no “that” in medicine?’

  ‘There is when we don’t yet have a name for it,’ Schmidt replied with unassailable logic. ‘Scans indicate that it is cellular in structure, but we’re too far out to get much detail and I recommend we stay that way and send a drone or two in.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Marshall nodded, and gestured for the Commander of the Air Group to comply with the suggestion. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then, we analyse it,’ Schmidt replied. ‘We don’t know what we’ve got here, so caution is our best bet.’

  Lieutenant Foxx gently eased her way into the conversation. ‘Admiral, the prison?’

  Marshall shook his head. ‘Not now lieutenant, it’ll have to wait and we can’t break that jamming signal anyway. The prison warden will have everything under control I’m sure and…’

  ‘Nathan’s over there, admiral,’ Vasquez said quietly, ‘along with Detective Allen.’

  Marshall exhaled noAsily as he realized the danger that the two men could be in, but he knew that there was nothing that he could do to support them when far more lives were at stake right here and now.

  ‘They’ll have to look after themselves until we can send support,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  Lieutenant Foxx and Vasquez got the hint and backed off as the Tactical Officer raised her head from her screen.

  ‘Drones launched, sensors active. I’m detecting no output from the vessel’s fusion cores, no internal power sources.’

  Marshall frowned. ‘She just came out of super–luminal cruise, she must have power.’

  Schmidt stared at the huge vessel which was now silent and dark, hanging like a massive icy cocoon in deep space, invisible but for the occasional reflection of Titan’s running lights glinting in the immense void.

  ‘It’s an ambush predator,’ he whispered softly. ‘It’s hunting.’

  ***

  XXI

  Tethys Gaol

  Nathan paced up and down in an office adjoining the prison’s processing area, a series of hard–light quarantine cubicles where he could see prisoners being contained as they were ordered to strip naked and be scanned.

  There was little left to chance in Tethys, the ingenuity of inmates in creating and smuggling weapons in and out of the prison a constant source of amazement for the sticks, as he had learned that the security personnel were known as. Nathan had already heard one story of a particularly violent inmate who had been locked in a bare cell for striking one of the sticks. With nothing but the clothes he wore, the inmate had managed to fashion from the buttons and threads of his shirt a small and roughly spherical object. When one of the prison’s medical staff arrived to tend to him the inmate was able to shove the object down their throat, blocking their windpipe as he held their choking body to ransom, the object connected to his finger by a single thread.

  Nathan shivered. Although he had faced violence on many occasions in the past, he was not by his nature a violent man. Here inside the prison it wasn’t just the ever–present threat of violence and danger that broke the will of men, but the bizarre and unexpected forms which that violence could take. By definition, half of the inmates could be considered border–line psychopaths, and who knew what they might be capable of if they were let loose amid the population.

  Detective Allen entered the room.

  ‘You got anything yet?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Allen replied, equally dismayed. ‘All communications are down, something to do with what’s going on outside but there’s a media blackout too, so we’re essentially blind in here.’

  ‘You think the wa
rden’s done it?’ Nathan hazarded.

  ‘Nah,’ Allen shook his head. ‘It’s too big for a small fish like him, this is something to do with Polaris Station.’

  ‘What would cause the fleet to shut down everything like this?’

  ‘Beats me,’ Allen said, ‘but right now we’re stuck here and we don’t know what the warden’s going to do next.’

  ‘If he’s in on whatever’s going to happen to Reed, then we need to be there to stop it,’ Nathan said. ‘If Reed gets killed this whole thing is over.’

  ‘He’s probably in protective custody,’ Allen pointed out. ‘Lieutenant Foxx’s message about doubts in the conviction got through to Tethys before the communications were cut off, but we haven’t heard anything from the San Diego DA. The warden would be risking his career to keep Reed in population now.’

  ‘Did we get anything else from Foxx and Vasquez?’

  ‘Afraid not,’ Allen said, ‘they clearly had more to say but it got cut off.’

  Two more men entered the room, prison guards dressed all in black armor. One of them, with a shaved head and an impossibly wide jaw, spoke in a monotone voice.

  ‘All Blocks are on lockdown, warden’s orders.’

  ‘Did the warden receive our priority request?’ Nathan asked. ‘Has Reed been placed in protective custody?’

  The guard, a sergeant, shook his head. ‘Follow me.’

  Nathan hurried out of the office and followed the two guards down the corridor outside. The huge passage had once been one of the conduits for gas being pumped from the station out into the huge holds of transport spacecraft, the prison merely having placed a level floor at the bottom of the immense tube to turn it into an access route. Nathan could see many more smaller and unaltered pipes running above his head that had probably contained coolants and power cables protected from the gas itself.