Warrior Chronicles 6: Warrior's Glass

by Shawn Jones

  “What do you know George?”

  George knew Cort well enough that he didn’t need to mince words or qualify what he supposed had happened. He told him he thought the ship’s warp field acted as its outer hull, and the gravity generators were keeping it from reforming.

  Cort reached the end of the barrel, where a Marine in a CONDOR was rigging a molecular cable tether to a maintenance handle. He took the loose end of the cable and pushed off the Remington’s hull as he ordered George not to shut down the gravity field.

  “And let the shuttle know what is going on. If your mother isn’t awake yet, I want Dalek to talk to Bazal and find out how his people are.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cort’s momentum carried him straight toward the disabled ship, but the debris bouncing off his armor changed his trajectory. Without warning, he crashed into a dense mass and as he fought to stabilize himself, he realized it was a body. Cort immediately thought of Tolkien’s elves. The being was three meters long, with six lithe appendages. Translucent green skin was barely visible, as it was mostly hidden by a brownish exoskeleton that reminded him of a rusted seahorse. He had only a moment to consider these physical characteristics before the organism sprang to life.

  “Holy fuck!” Cort screamed as the alien separated into two parts—a green elf, which appeared larger and heavier without its counterpart, and the exoskeleton. He didn’t have time to think about it, because the exoskeletal half attacked his CONDOR, and wrapped itself around Cort’s armored limbs. It somehow bonded to the suit, keeping him from moving to defend himself. With a thought, he turned the suit’s power to maximum, and was able to flex his limbs. But it was too late. The attacker had cut his tether. He was in free fall, floating in space, struggling against the exoskeleton.

  In his comm, he distantly heard someone say, “The tether is cut! Ares is not secure! Repeat, Ares is in free fall!”

  The initial shock of what he thought was a dead being attacking him was replaced by Cort’s long-seasoned instincts for war. “Weapons free! Fire on all enemy bodies. They can survive in space. Clear the area of hostiles, then make your jumps to the ship. Kill anything that moves.”

  Schwartz had only been made a Lieutenant two days before, but he’d been a Marine for three years. While Cort gave orders, Schwartz tied off another tether line and prepared to jump to his leader. George delayed him, and the AI redirected two gravity generators to push Cort onto the enemy ship.

  George also took control of Lieutenant Rai’s suit, rendering the lieutenant helpless. He ran Rai down the Remington’s barrel, then jumped the CONDOR across the void between the ships.

  The change in gravity emitted by the generators that enveloped the enemy ship pushed Cort toward it, though he was still struggling with the alien exoskeleton. The three-pronged hand that once wrapped around the neck of an elf, wrapped its long fingers around the CONDOR’s helmet. The being didn’t have the power to succeed against Cort’s augmented strength, but was clearly intelligent. A green light on the suit’s HUD turned amber. “Oh fuck! It’s opening my helmet!”

  Cort raised his arms to his head and held the helmet in place. “Get me to that deck, George! Schwartz! Rai! I need help! As soon as I’m on the ship, try and get to me.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Cort’s CONDOR crossed the plane that would have been the ship’s hull and immediately fell to the deck, tumbling several meters before coming to a stop. With his arms holding his helmet in place, Cort struggled to his feet and ran full speed into a nearby wall, hoping to shake the being from his suit. “Rai! Hurry!”

  George lost control of Rai’s CONDOR as the suit crossed the plane of the enemy ship, and sent Rai tumbling across the deck, just like Cort. He crashed into an internal wall, reset the suit, and righted himself.

  Schwartz also launched himself as soon he saw Cort hit the deck of the enemy ship. He felt two nudges as he crossed the void, but his HUD showed no exoskeletons around him. Over his comm, he heard George’s voice. “I am using the gravity generators to increase your momentum, Lieutenant Schwartz. You must secure the other end of your tether. Lieutenant Rai can assist Ares.”

  Rai found Cort holding his helmet in place with both of his arms, and his legs wrapped around a short post of some sort. The short post was in fact the hard exoskeleton of the alien. Rai yanked pieces off of Cort’s CONDOR, and flung them away. Once the last piece was gone, he checked Cort’s seals and gave him a thumbs up sign.

  Cort locked his helmet and ran a battle check of his systems while Marines in CONDORs gathered in formation around him. The suit was ninety-eight percent combat ready. He checked the deficiencies and muttered, “Aw fuck.”

  “Sir?” Rai asked.

  “They were absorbing the graphene in my suit,” Cort said. “Marines, this is Ares. They can absorb our armor. They eat the graphene somehow. Execute Bravo. Three person teams. If someone gets hit by an alien, one of you break it off, and the third gives cover. If it gets deeper than that, call for help.”

  The Marines acknowledged Cort’s orders and separated into groups of threes. Cort commed George. “Son, I need you to work on a way to stop the exos from eating through our armor. And I need it fast. The drones are nearly useless. Mine are being absorbed.”

  “Yes, Father,” George replied. “I have not been able to scan the interior of the enemy ship. I cannot link with your drones, either. I do not know how the area is protected from my tachyon scans. However, I have confirmed its hull was a warp field. I need to study their engines, but cannot do so from the Remington.”

  “Back up, George. If I do a tachyon scan here, can you compare my results to what you are seeing, and give me a good map?”

  “Yes sir, I can.”

  Cort ordered two of the Marine teams to move as far from him as possible, then he and the team leaders all pinged the inside of the enemy ship with tachyons, and sent the data to George. While George worked with the imagery, Cort did a spectral analysis of an enemy appendage and compared it to a dead host body.

  Turning to Rai, he said, “LT, we have two different aliens. The tall thin humanoids and the exoskeletons. They appear to be two distinct species.” The team's new orders were to try to capture at least one of the symbiotic pairs alive, but not to risk themselves in the process.

  While more Marines came across and formed into teams, Cort studied the map. Most of what they already knew about the ship was true, but there was some new information. He compared the map to what the octopods had shared through Bazal and Kim, and found the three most likely places where the enemy could be holding Bazal’s people. Dispersing six man teams to each of the areas, he took two CONDORs and headed toward the bridge, while Rai and five others went to the engine area.

  Cort stepped into an airlock, and hit what he thought to be its control. The door behind him closed, and he immediately lost his link to the Remington and George. He regained contact when he cycled the outer door again. Since he could still see and talk to his men, he warned George, then went back inside the ship.

  Cort emerged into an empty passageway, but immediately recalled Rai’s team, and pushed another CONDOR backward as the sounds of battle raged at a nearby airlock. He listened to the battlenet as two CONDORs went down to enemy attacks, and the third member of the team fell back to the airlock they’d breached. Redeploying Schwartz’s CONDORs, he retreated through the opening in time to see two Marines pulling their fallen companions backward onto the deck.

  In another corridor, a trio of CONDORs fought the exoskeletons to prevent them from consuming one of their power supplies. One Marine was overcome, and his power pack overloaded. The two unaffected fighters ripped the compromised energy supply from their companion’s back and threw it against a wall, with the exos still attached. They hauled their disabled companion to his feet and ran, dragging him between them.

  The power pack exploded, ripping a hole in the interior hull, and atmosphere vented into space. The two CONDORs struggled against the onslaug
ht of the vacuum themselves, trying valiantly to secure their fallen comrade, but he was ripped from their arms, and sucked into the explosion. Other Marines watched in horror as the suit was consumed by flames, then disappeared into space. Their only solace was that the man’s screams could not be heard through the vacuum.

  Over the battlenet, Cort heard Rai order Marines to fall back to the outside of the ship, until they could find a safer way into the ship. They regrouped into squads of six-man teams before going back inside. Rai’s team fought their way into the hull breach to find a way to stop the loss of atmosphere, even as enemy fighters were sucked past them into space. The rest of the teams headed for other airlocks, hoping to attack from multiple points.

  Rai dropped to his belly and crawled through the hole, holding onto both sides of the ruptured airlock. He signaled his team to make their way over him, and into the opening. Staying on the deck, and horizontal, to avoid being sucked into space, the Marines slid inside one by one, pulled Rai in behind them, and crawled into the hallway, looking for a way to seal the breach.

  “Sir, I’ve got an idea. What if we seal the hole with our CONDORs until we find a way to patch it?”

  Rai looked at the sergeant and asked what he meant. The man scrambled across the floor and pushed Rai out of the hatchway. Once the deck was clear, he rolled up on his side, and locked the joints of his armor, with the arms and legs of the suit keeping him from being sucked out of the opening. Rai caught on when another CONDOR crossed over the sergeant’s body, and rolled on top of it, also locking his joints. The vacuum of space held the two CONDORs in place, as Rai stacked another Marine on top of the first two. There was still atmosphere escaping the ship, but the Marines carried their own air, and they could move around freely. With the last man secure, the other Marines started looking for another solution.

  Rai laughed. “So how long do you want to stay here, Sarge?”

  “Just long enough for you to cut a panel out of that wall behind you, LT.”

  Rai hid his embarrassment as he turned, and if it wouldn’t have broken his visor, he would have slapped himself. Sergeants. I should have thought of that. He reached over his shoulder, and drew his bastard sword from its sheath. Another Marine laughed and drew his own sword. Rai looked at the hole, then back at the wall, and scratched the shape of a rough patch in its surface.

  The Marine followed him with his own molecular-edged sword, and cut through the wall. They removed the loosened panel and carried it to the breach. The three men who were blocking the hole unlocked their joints and blew through the opening, where they were caught by CONDORs that were anchored to the outer deck of the ship. The panel was pulled into place by vacuum and the opening sealed. Sighing with relief, Rai leaned against the patch, while he reported success to Cort. His tone quickly changed from satisfaction to distress.

  “Aw, shit! We’ve got a problem, Ares. I need help at this location.”

  Cort opened Rai’s video feed and saw the issue. On the other side of the new opening in the inner wall, stood several dozen of the symbiotic pairs. Even as he watched, the exoskeletons detached from their hosts and moved toward the Marines. As the exos left their hosts, the other beings died instantly and collapsed to the deck of the ship.

  “George!” Cort yelled as he started to run for the breach. “Ready point defense weapons. Rai! Clear that wall and anchor yourselves!”

  Rai and two remaining Marines barely had enough time to find handholds before Cort jumped, and the mass of his CONDOR smashed against the top of the patch, knocking it to the interior deck.

  The panel collapsed under Cort’s weight and momentum, and the vacuum of space resumed its own attack on the ship. The aliens were sucked past Marines, into space, where they became targets of the Remington’s point defense lasers.

  Clearing the area yet again, Rai helped Cort off the panel, and two Marines lifted it back in place. When Cort regrouped with his own team, he noticed a twenty first century non-Marine in the group. Named Woolf, the man was in a CONDOR. “Woolf, you aren’t a Marine. What are you doing in my armor?”

  “Ben Woolf. I was taken from Earth in twenty-fifteen. When they asked for fighters, I told them I didn’t have combat experience, but I loved powered armor in video games. I used to play a VR game called MECH Team 1 all the…”

  Cort cut him off. “This sounds like it’s going to take a while, so it can wait. Just follow orders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With point teams finally inside the ship, Ares Federation Marines made their foothold, and started their search.

  --

  Cort had twenty-eight Marines on the ship when its hull reformed.

  “What just happened?”

  “Schwartz here, sir. The enemy hull just sealed back up. The outer areas have atmosphere again.”

  “Okay, but we’ve lost contact with the Remington. Keep your men away from the hull in case it drops again.”

  One of the Marine teams had found the octopods and secured that area. Cort picked two Marines who had linked with Bazal in the past, and told them to build a network through the octopods to Bazal, who would then relay communications to Kim, in order for her to get communications with George back online.

  Having heard the conversation between Cort and the two marines, Woolf commed to him privately. “Sir, when you were asking for Marines who had linked to Bazal, what did you mean by, our own time?”

  Cort considered his options. The kid was clearly good, or he wouldn’t have gotten a CONDOR. He was also smart, and more importantly, sharp.

  “Woolf, listen. I don’t have time to explain, but you were taken to a different universe. Not a different planet, a different universe. Time was different there, so while only three years passed for you after your abduction, three hundred passed on Earth. Are you with me so far?”

  “Time travel, sir?”

  As they walked through a captured part of the enemy ship, Cort explained that he was also from the twenty-first century, and that it was crucial Woolf not try to contact Earth, lest he create paradox. He didn’t share that he himself was playing with the timeline by trying to save Diane.

  Woolf conceded paradox could be disastrous for the future, but wouldn’t go so far as to say he believed Cort.

  “It doesn’t matter if you believe me, son. Can you keep your mouth shut and follow orders?”

  Cort could see Ben’s vital signs on his own HUD. The younger man was thinking, and he was stressed. Cort entered the command codes to Ben’s suit and was ready to lock it down if Woolf snapped, but he hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

  After a moment, Woolf’s heart rate dropped and he said, “Yes, sir. I can follow your orders. And for what it’s worth, I guess I do believe you. I still want the proof, but what you’re saying fits, I guess.”

  Cort held his hand up, and listened to Schwartz over the comm.

  Schwartz showed Cort imagery of a second holding area his team had found. There were nearly fifty humanoid aliens, but all were without exoskeletons. Without time to figure out their role on the enemy ship, Cort ordered Schwartz to take them into custody, and hold them with the octopods.

  When Cort showed the imagery to Rai and Woolf. “Like Aliens.”

  “Yes, they are aliens.”

  Woolf told Rai he meant the movie from the late twentieth century, but Cort stopped him from explaining more to Rai.

  “Again, we don’t have time. This isn’t like a video game. Keep conversations on point, Woolf.”

  --

  Level by level, and room by room, Cort and his Marines fought the enemy across the ship. It took three hours for the CONDORs to clear the outer sections of the ship. In one of the many skirmishes, six Marines were lost when a coolant vent on the ship was hit by a railgun.

  Standing outside the bridge, Rai protested Cort’s plan to assault the ship’s command center.

  “General, I don’t think we should kill them all. What if we need some of them? To run this tub, I mean?”

/>   “I’m under the impression we don’t want this tub to run, Rai. I’d kind of like to stop it and get off with the rescued octopods. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. But what if our ship isn’t around?”

  Woolf interrupted them. “General, he’s got a point. It’s the wrong one, but it’s valid.”

  “What’s the right point, then?” Rai asked dubiously.

  Woolf pointed at the outer wall of the ship and reminded them the wall didn’t exist when the ship wasn’t moving. He asked how they would survive if the rest of the ship disappeared because there was no one who could operate it.

  “Okay,” Cort said. He looked at a map of the ship that was being projected onto a bulkhead wall. “That’s a valid concern. Let’s operate on that assumption. We need to stop the ship without killing them. Let’s get to engineering.”