Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  Marines ahead vanished into the hole, then terse conversation as they blasted doors beyond to expand the entry vacuum. Trace angled up the power, suit navcomp showing her the course to be followed, curving and running away from her like the winding rails of a rollercoaster. For a moment it required her full attention, tacnet forgotten as she pushed thrust down, feet extended, still carrying PH-1’s forward momentum as her downward thrust fought the station’s spin, equalising even now at one-point-two centrifugal gravities…

  “Bravo is in and clear,” said Alomaim from up ahead. The ragged hole got abruptly larger, big enough to have taken two station floors, exposed innards of three rooms and a hallway past a lot of torn steel, drifting wires and something liquid that clung and dribbled from her visor as she flew through a cloud of it. Kono chose the upper room and she crashed in beside him, cutting thrust and sliding on her knees into a hard collision with the far wall. Then up and stomping through debris, through the ruin of the blast door that had failed to protect the hallway beyond from shrapnel. That hall had lost another decompression door to a big charge, and Trace ducked through that gaping hole, unclipping her rifle for the first time then detouring to stand behind the door’s remains as other marines ran past, and coms were filled with terse shouts and calls of corridors and rooms behind cleared.

  “Delta is in and clear,” came Crozier’s voice from several hundred metres along.

  “Alpha is in and clear,” Dale echoed from nearer the bottom of the station rim.

  “Command is in and clear,” Trace spoke into the first clear air. “Looks good, hit your objectives.”

  “Charlie is in and clear,” said Jalawi, several hundred metres up-spin with the task of guarding their flanks that way.

  And then, a few seconds later, “Garudan is in and clear,” said Karajin from the top of the rim. Good old tavalai, last again.

  “Styx, situation report?” Trace demanded, holding position with Command Squad strung up the corridor, and now Bravo Heavy Squad thundering past, bristling with chain guns, rocket launchers and ammo racks.

  “Hello Major,” said Styx from back on Phoenix. “I have solid uplinks to the station controls, reeh coms encryption is advanced but within my capabilities, corbi advice on their technological base appears accurate for now. Portions of the station appear segregated, it will take me a while to penetrate each segment, I can only see the parts that you are advancing through at the moment.”

  “I copy that Styx, give me an update as soon as you’ve anything to report.” All large station facilities of any technological base had wireless communications. Styx had access to all of Phoenix’s marines, and probably to Makimakala’s too, however unauthorised by the tavalai. Through them, modulations to coms encryption that would typically have taken a human technician months, Styx could perform almost instantaneously through various AI voodoo means that Trace did not pretend to understand. Now that they were inside, Styx was her best source of intelligence, theoretically being able to scout the station’s systems from the inside and access everything down to door controls and security cameras. However advanced reeh technology, reeh were organic, and no organic species held a candle to hacksaw AIs in computers and communications.

  Coms chatter and advancing dots on tacnet informed her that Bravo was blasting more doors open, her suit sensors registering a brief rush of air as it passed, then out into the void. When breached, automated station doors and seals would descend to make the interior airtight once more. Phoenix Company were now breaching those, expanding the airless entry void until, inevitably, they bypassed seals not yet descended, which some damage control system would close behind them and enable pressure to be restored. Should the local damage control neglect to do that, the attackers would simply keep blasting doors until the entire station was vacuum — a situation that hurt less-prepared defenders worse than attackers.

  “Let’s go,” she told Kono, and walked single-file down the corridor. “I want a secure hold not far from the entry point.”

  Tacnet showed her the progress of each platoon, spreading methodically through this part of the station rim, thus far reporting no resistance. No anything, in fact. Glimpses of various helmet cams showed her the predictable corridors of a croma-built station, more high-ceilings than any human built station, lots of wall-mounted public access displays, all long-dead and blank. Her suit’s heavy footsteps thudded in her helmet, the sound coming through the suit alone in the absence of air. The corridors had no lights, but the suits gave off multi-spectrum low-vis which the cameras turned into sharp wrap-around vision, clearer than normal light.

  “Nothing so far, Major,” Dale said grimly. “Power readings indicate the whole thing’s functional, a lot of these minor systems are dead though. Doesn’t look like anyone’s here.”

  “Not in this sector no,” Trace confirmed, turning after Kono into a larger hall. Ahead, a large blast door had been pulverised by a missile — the blast had been inaudible earlier. “We know the station’s occupied, we’re expecting a trap, keep your eyes peeled.”

  On point, Zale ducked through the blast door hole, then Kono, then Trace. A coms light blinked from Djojana Naki. Trace answered. “This is Major Thakur, go ahead.”

  “Major,” spoke the translator. “We’ve found something. Check the visual.” Trace opened the vision feed… and tried to make sense of what she was looking at, while walking.

  It was a vast space — the dock, kept large by traditional Spiral design, and the desire of most species to have one part of the station that wasn’t cramped with low ceilings. This dock looked about five storeys high… but it was hard to tell because the interior was full of trees. Trace had never seen anything like it on a space station before. There were interior gardens on plenty of stations, small aesthetic parks with water features where kids could play and couples stroll, and hydroponics bays filled with wheat and cabbages. But this looked like a jungle.

  “This is a biological research facility,” Trace told Naki. “Get the corbi to look at it, I’ll bet those are all species from Rando.”

  “Major, I agree. I will ask the corbi for observations. You have seen nothing like this on your side?”

  “Standard space station design so far. Naki, if this is a trap they’ll draw us right in first, make us commit. Be ready.”

  “You also.”

  Ahead, a large elevator shaft had been forced open where tacnet told her that marines from Bravo Platoon had gone down it. “Good avenues of access, close to the entrypoint,” Kono explained, and Trace nodded, gave her finger a twirl to indicate he should set up. Command Squad fanned out for cover, and Trace leaned her propulsion/thruster combo against the wall by the elevator, and paid full attention to her screens.

  “Major,” came Jalawi’s voice. “Charlie in position on your left, we’re fanned across, setting up sentries now, looks like good coverage.”

  Trace was less convinced — roughly 400 marines wasn’t a lot to cover an entire station rim on this scale. “Don’t spread too thin or you’ll get picked off. Karajin, situation?”

  “Good progress Major,” said the tavalai. “Clear on top, pressure systems reestablishing. Second Unit saw something strange though, we have vision.”

  “Show me.”

  Vision appeared, with the shaky movement of helmet-cam, a karasai striding and panning to get a good look. It was a hallway, but different from the hallways here. This one had large containers built into the walls, vertical cylinders, fed by thick tubes through the walls. Something about it set her nerves on edge… those tubes looked organic. Creepy, as though some malignant growth were gestating in the walls, fed by nutrients. As the camera drew level she saw that the tubes’ glass front had slid back, leaving them empty. A few dripped, recently wet, puddles spreading on the steel floor. The empty tubes were filled with some sort of sticky mass, like a tangle of alien seaweed that clung to a karasai’s gun muzzle when he prodded it.

  “You’ve got atmospheric pressure there?” Trace
asked.

  “Yes Major, it returned just now.”

  “Right, feed that vision to the corbi and to Phoenix and Makimakala, get an opinion, we want to know what we’re walking into. That looks like recent activity, whatever it is.”

  “Yes Major.”

  The hardest part of the assault’s entry-phase was over, and Trace was stationary, being just a commander and not a fighter. But this part was always the most challenging overall — when things began to happen that were not in anyone’s plan, requiring improvisation. Individual platoon commanders could improvise fine, but it had to be coordinated or else they’d all soon be working at odds. Performing that coordination was Trace’s job, and if she got this bit wrong she could set up monstrous failures to come.

  “Major,” came Crozier, “we’ve got a big thoroughfare hall up the middle here, takes us straight to the bridge. We’re spreading wide with caution, looks clear though.”

  “Copy JC, Garudan’s coming down above you, Bravo’s got your rear and Delta’s got your belly…” A light flashed from Styx, and she opened the channel. “Go Styx.”

  “Major, I have a clear fix on the age of this station. I’m confident it is no older than four hundred human years.”

  Trace frowned. “That’s not what we were told.”

  “No, the Resistance told us it was over a thousand years old, before the croma retreated from this region of space. These computer systems reveal their chronological history quite clearly, they were commissioned less than four hundred years ago and were completely new at that time. There was no station refit, though all systems have been considerably upgraded since and reconfigured by reeh occupation.”

  Trace could not immediately see why it mattered. But interrupting the Marine Commander in mid-assault with irrelevant information would be stupid. Styx was not stupid. “Wait… you mean the reeh didn’t completely strip and install their own systems when they took over the station? Just upgraded?”

  “Yes Major,” said Styx. “These systems were built by croma. While this region of space was under complete reeh occupation and control.”

  Trace’s eyes widened. “Built by Croma’Rai? The ruling clan?”

  “We are directly adjoining Croma’Rai space and some construction clues appear to indicate it, yes. Captain Debogande did remark that this looked far more like a trading station than the industrial hub we were told it had been. My records indicate that in the vicinity of four hundred years ago, Croma’Rai experienced an extremely large economic downturn. There was civil conflict with other clans, their rulership was questioned.”

  “They traded with the fucking reeh!” Trace exclaimed. Swearing wasn’t like her, but discovery was a different sort of adrenaline. Styx was right, this changed everything. “They must have built stations out here where no one other than Croma’Rai would find them to conduct the trade.”

  “None of us are experts in croma politics,” Styx ventured, “but trading with the croma’s worst enemy to preserve one’s own power would seem scandalous in the extreme. It would suggest the croma leadership is bought and paid for by the reeh.”

  “And that’s why Croma’Dokran were so damn pleased to send us out here,” Trace growled as it came clear to her, heart thumping in that unpleasant way that even she found difficult to control. “Shit. Tell Erik immediately, we’re being used to play politics between croma factions, Croma’Dokran aren’t allowed out this way but they must have guessed.”

  “Such a joint venture between reeh and Croma’Rai will be well monitored by all sides in case of discovery,” Styx added. “Chances are significant that our time here is limited.”

  “Captains, this is no concern,” said the harried-sounding corbi fleet commander. “We did not know the station’s origin, and it does not matter. The assault is progressing well, we will shortly have the data we seek.”

  Phoenix hurtled at orbital-plus velocity about the moon, burning at two-Gs to climb for high geostationary near the neutral-gravity Lagrange point between the moon and its gas giant parent. The corbi fleet of five ships were staying in close proximity to the station’s orbit, but as the big beasts of the assault, Phoenix and Makimakala needed a higher overwatch position from which they could respond quickly to further incoming threats.

  Erik did not see an advantage in pressing the corbi commander for more information. “Coms, get me Makimakala, lasercom.”

  “Aye Captain, Makimakala online.”

  “Captain Debogande,” came Pram’s voice without prompting. “I am almost certain this is a trap. This does indeed appear to be a splicer facility, but initial defences were weak. If one of those retreating reeh ships short-jumped, they could have a small fleet waiting in the outer system ready to jump in on us. Now the corbi say they did not know the station’s origin, which is impossible given Rando was invaded a thousand years ago and they’ve been roaming this space close to the Croma Wall for all that time and know all its major stations and facilities…”

  “I know,” Erik said tightly, resisting the impulse to glance nervously at Scan as though Geish might have missed something. “I’m nearly as worried about the croma as the reeh — if we’re right about Croma’Rai, they’ll do anything to cover this up. They don’t like anyone meeting with Dega’s group, they don’t like Croma’Dokran hosting Dega’s group, this might give them the excuse to get rid of both us and Dega together.”

  On one small corner of his multiple screens he read a condensed version of Trace’s feed, the gist of which was good progress and no resistance. All of Phoenix Company’s marines together only made the smallest footprint on one small section of that enormous station’s rim. In the Triumvirate War it had taken thousands of marines to clear stations this size. An entire enemy division could be hiding in there and no one would know about it.

  “Given that it is definitely a splicer,” Pram continued, “I feel that we have no choice but to continue. Your drysine has made no progress in locating the computer cores?”

  “She’s analysing schematics now. She says the command center appears extremely well protected from infiltration, and that reeh network and computer tech is the most advanced she’s seen in an organic species…”

  “Captain!” Styx interrupted loudly with no coms etiquette at all. “I am blocked out of the station system, you must withdraw all forces immediately!” She sounded quite alarmed. “Captain Pram, you as well, we have been deceived as to reeh capabilities.”

  A red light from Operations was blinking furiously. “Hang on Styx… Operations, go ahead.”

  “Captain, I have lost contact with Phoenix Company.” It was Ensign Blunt, and he sounded alarmed as well. “All contact just dropped out, we’re com-linked off Styx’s new systems, we’re modulating encryptions and frequencies… it shouldn’t be possible.”

  “Styx,” said Erik, “can you reestablish coms?”

  “Captain,” said the former drysine fleet commander. “Pay attention to what I am telling you. I am, for the moment, technologically outmatched. I am locked out, my access routines are inoperative, I believe I can find a solution but it will require more time than we have strategically available.”

  Erik needed time to process it… but time, in combat operations, was the rarest gift of all. Styx was technologically outmatched? No organic species could rival hacksaw AIs, least of all one as advanced as Styx… what the hell was going on? Or was Styx somehow behind all this herself — she’d never wanted to come on this mission, she’d staged her mini-mutiny on Defiance to create a new drysine force allied to Gesul and the rising House Harmony… was this some sort of continuation? Had she been planning to betray Phoenix’s mission here from the beginning? But what could it gain her, given that she was in as little hurry to commit suicide as any of them, and that Phoenix still represented great strategic value to her?

  “We’re getting out!” Erik commanded, spinning Phoenix on its axis and engaging hard thrust. “Nav, course back to station!”

  “On it Captain!” Erik
didn’t need Kaspowitz to do something as simple as fly back, but no captain ran a hostile vector without multiple escape routes at his fingertips.

  “Coms and Operations, get me contact with Phoenix Company, don’t care how! Makimakala, Phoenix is reacquiring our people and leaving, suggest you do the same.”

  “Makimakala is doing the same, Phoenix,” Pram replied. On Scan, Erik could see the big tavalai carrier following, coloured red for rapid acceleration, a scroll of numbers as projected course changed. “I suggest we keep an eye on those corbi ships. They won’t like us leaving, they’ve risked a lot to get us here.”

  “I agree. If necessary we’ll share targets.”

  “Makimakala copies.”

  “ETA to station seven minutes fourteen on projected course,” Kaspowitz declared. “Recommend we don’t rush it Captain, the marines can’t withdraw that fast anyway.”

  “Agreed,” said Erik, burning at four Gs to align them on the new course, chasing the station as it zoomed beyond the moon’s horizon.

  “Captain,” said Geish, “Corbi warship Zelta is engaging a cross-orbital fire-platform we didn’t see earlier. Data to your screen.”

  “I see it.” The fire-platforms on the way in had been entirely geo-stationary — Scan wouldn’t see something in lower orbit over the horizon, though what possible use it would be with the moon making a fire-shadow that covered half the sky… “Operations, anything from the shuttles?”

  “Captain, Lieutenant Hausler says he can’t reach them either, none of the pilots can. He’s going to swing by and see if he can do a visual.”

  See if anyone was close enough to a window to establish laser-com with, that meant. Jamming was always a thing on station assaults, but with Styx running coms, and all that technology massively boosted, it wasn’t something they’d expected to deal with much. Usually Styx could infiltrate a station’s systems so thoroughly she could find the source of jamming and eliminate it without a shot fired.