by Jamie Sawyer
Novak and Lopez were clambering out of their own tanks, with the same urgency. Zero had summoned Pariah, the alien looming over my tank.
“Help me out of here, P,” I said. “We’ve got a situation.”
Feng stirred more slowly, his eyes searching the insides of the simulator as though this were the first time that he had seen it.
“Keep him in that tank,” I ordered.
“I’m on it,” Zero said, her voice hoarse with emotion. “Don’t give in to it, Chu!”
Any hope that the transition had somehow cancelled the Directorate override—or whatever it was that had seized Feng—was dashed as his eyes focused on Zero.
“Please!” Zero shouted.
Feng’s hands formed into fists, and he began to pound the inside of the tank’s canopy. The whole simulator shook.
“I told you to sedate him!” I said. I was trying to shake off the extraction, trying to think of something—anything—we could do to solve this.
“I’ve already done that!” Zero said. “I gave him a double dose!”
“Stand back,” Novak roared. He was out of his tank, dripping wet with conducting fluid, cracking his knuckles. “I take care of him.”
“Feng-other has become a liability,” said P. “We will assist.”
“Exactly,” Novak agreed. “Fish pops canopy, I take out Feng—”
“No!” Zero said, blocking Novak’s path. “You can’t do this!”
“He’s turned,” said Lopez. She was armed, a Widowmaker pistol aimed at Feng’s tank.
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing!” Zero implored.
Feng had found a sort of rhythm now. His biceps contorted, and a terrible new well of strength opened up inside him. He rained hammer-blows on the canopy. Although it might be capable of taking an AP round, it wasn’t going to take much more of Feng.
“What’s the alternative, Zero?” Lopez said. “We can’t let him loose on the ship.”
“There has to be some other way!”
Zero’s console displayed the data-packet in all its glory. Complete astrogation data, a starmap to a destination inside the Maelstrom. Even as we watched, the Firebird’s AI verified the Q-jumps. It plotted a route through the Drift, past previously occupied Krell worlds, into Harbinger-ravaged sectors …
“Dr. Locke was the real deal,” I said. “This intel looks like it means something.”
“Jenkins-other is correct,” P deduced. “Directorate cannot be allowed to obtain the map. Feng-other must be terminated.”
P cocked its head at Feng, and the pounding seemed to grow in intensity, as though Pariah were somehow anathema to Feng.
“Feng is sleeper agent,” Novak said bluntly. “Maybe working for Directorate all along, yes?”
Zero shook her head, in denial. “No way. Not Chu. He’s different.” She looked to me, her tired eyes beseeching. “We can help him, right?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He … he has something in his head.”
“How do you know that?” Lopez asked.
“Maberry told me. She found something on the medical scans, after Jiog. She thought that it was some sort of neural-implant.”
“Then … then we can destroy the control!” Zero urged.
Her console lit with an incoming communication, from the bridge.
“What’s happening down there?” asked Captain Lestrade. “This area is hot, and getting hotter.”
The shudder of the ship’s gravity envelope told me that he was performing a manoeuvre under thrust. The inertial dampener field worked to counteract the effects.
“We read you, Captain,” I said. “The Jackals have extracted.”
“Then you have whatever the damn you needed from that planet?”
“Zero is going to upload some astrogation data to the mainframe,” I said. “I want you to lock it down. Maximum encryption.”
“Understood,” he answered. “The Directorate have left the surface. I’m tracking two dropships en route from Svoboda.”
My skin prickled, and my ports ached. Something like a plan was starting to come together in my head.
“Keep the scopes trained on those ships,” I said. “Can you track where they’re headed?”
Zero’s face illuminated with hope. Meanwhile, Feng continued his assault on the canopy. He’d already broken the skin of his knuckles, sending spirals of crimson into the blue amniotic inside the tank.
Captain Lestrade paused. When he spoke, he sounded almost reluctant to give me the answer, as though he knew where I was going with this.
“I can,” he said.
“Then take us as close as you can to their destination.”
“What the hell are we doing?” Lopez exclaimed. “This system is falling apart! If the Krell don’t get us, then the Directorate will!”
“I’m looking after my squad,” I answered. “Watch Feng.”
“Where are you going?” Lopez questioned again.
“I’m going after the Furious Retribution,” I said. “Prepare for transition. Send me back, Zero.”
New body. New armour.
I made transition, and Zero fired me from the Firebird’s drop-bay just like before.
“Launch successful,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Phase one thruster igniting,” Zero said. “We have you on the scanner.”
“Keep eyes on me throughout.”
But within seconds, the Firebird was a pinprick of light, lost among the sea of other vessels that populated the Mu-98 star system.
The suit’s systems booted up. What I couldn’t see with my eyes, I could sense with the scanner-suite. I drank in the intelligence.
Space was awash with transmissions, with a thousand individual conflicts. The Harbinger-infected xeno fleet was hundreds strong, pouring through the Shard Gate.
Ark-ships dominated the orbital lanes. Huge, bloated things, the arks were mobile colonies, capable of carrying thousands of Krell warriors, an innumerable variety of bio-forms. All infected, all rotten. The very arks themselves were polluted by the Harbinger virus.
Bio-ships of many types followed behind the arks. They drifted in-system, firing their living plasma engines, spreading destruction wherever they went. The ships launched clusters of bio-warheads, Seeker missiles that took on a life of their own, and sought out targets of opportunity whenever they arose. Each of those warships was lethally dangerous in its own right; in a shoal of this size, the fleet was unstoppable.
Meanwhile, more specialised Krell starships trailed in the main fleet’s wake. Some were twisted, urchin-like things, advancing ponderously, dropping living minefields as they went. Other, smaller vessels clustered together, Needler fighters forming flight wings that took on their Alliance counterparts. A tide of smaller living ships infested the asteroid and debris fields, creating entrenched Krell positions.
The Harbinger fleet took damage, sure, but it just kept coming. Every few seconds, another ship blinked into existence. The Shard Gate swarmed with xeno activity. The infected Krell were mindless, rampaging through Alliance battle lines.
The Navy’s response was uncoordinated, insufficient, never going to be enough. I’d seen some bad shit in my time, but in all my years of Army service, I’d never seen anything as catastrophic as this. The first, second, third lines of defence had all fallen. Thousands of Alliance troopers and sailors had probably already been lost. New stars formed all around me as starship energy cores cooked off, as plasma and laser and railgun fired into the void. Surely nothing could live through this? It was a massacre, pure and simple.
As I watched, as the Pathfinder suit continued to make burn across space, I realised the Harbinger fleet’s target.
“The xenos seem to be focusing on Kronstadt,” I said.
Even from space, I could see explosions rippling across Kronstadt’s surface. The Krell were invading, landing en masse, without care as to their losses. What did the fishes want with the planet? I wondered. Was there something—or perhap
s someone—directing their movements?
“Phase two thrust initiating,” Zero declared.
My suit accelerated. It felt like I couldn’t go much faster, as though the body would simply disintegrate with the force, the pressure, if I tried.
“How’s Feng?” I asked, just to stop myself from screaming with the pain in every joint, in my rib cage.
“He’s alive,” Zero said.
If I was going to save him, I had to act fast.
The Pathfinder suit jinked through a debris field. I was coming up on one of Kronstadt’s moons, small and grey, surface pocked by the artefacts of human industry. Data on my destination filled my HUD.
“The dropships were headed for the dark side of that moon,” Captain Lestrade explained.
“I’m coming up on the objective. I … I think I see it.”
There it was. The black mass of the Furious Retribution. Hiding something that big was no easy job, but Commander Kwan had made the most of the confusion, of the fog of war. The vessel’s battle-worn hull was almost invisible against the dark of space, only the glint of red running lights, and of open flight-bays, suggesting that she was even operational.
“Initiating phase three thrusters,” Zero said.
“Thanks for the heads up. Firing countermeasures.”
The drop-suit’s outer plating peeled off. I trailed debris, fake radio emissions, and sensor-fouling signals in an effort to baffle the Retribution’s defensive weapons package …
It was crunch time. Do or die.
You get wasted out here, you won’t even feel it. Probably.
And then I was through the Retribution’s null-shield and heading directly for her hull. The suit weaved, banked, yawed. The cold caress of combat-drugs flooded my system. I punched through the Retribution’s defence perimeter. My suit’s retro-thrusters fired.
“I’m down,” I said breathlessly.
I stood on the outer hull of the warship and marvelled that I was still in one piece. It sounded like there was clapping, cheering, over the comm channel to the Firebird.
I unhooked a demo-charge from my backpack and smiled to myself.
I’m coming for you, Kwan.
An effective starship breach usually demands planning and careful execution, relying on strategy, timing and intelligence. I didn’t care about any of those things. Not today, not while Feng still wailed and thrashed in his tank. I wanted my trooper back, and nothing was going to stand in my way. I moved on instinct alone, let my emotions rule my actions. The Pathfinder suit’s multi-vision selected a possible weak spot in the Retribution’s hull—where two armoured plates had been bolted together—and I got to work.
“Deploying charge,” I said.
“Move to safe distance,” Zero suggested.
“On it.” I bounced down the black plain of the hull, using my mag-locks to stay attached to the ship. “Clear.”
The charge detonated, and the hull exploded outwards, creating a rip in the ship’s armour.
A crewman, wearing Directorate colours, spiralled past me, sucked out into space. Another hung on to the lip of the entry point, fingers clawing at the twisted metal, already freezing from exposure to vacuum. Atmo and miscellaneous crap escaped in a miniature hurricane.
I moved fast. Tore the crewman away from the opening and threw him out. The body cartwheeled into the void.
“Sorry, asshole. You made your choice.”
The hull breach led into a corridor, wide enough to accommodate my armoured bulk. Security lamps in the deckhead flashed red, indicating a high alert, but exposed to vacuum the place was eerily silent.
“I’m in,” I said. “Heading for the flight-decks.”
The dropships had just docked, so that was where Kwan would be.
“We’re watching the vid-feed from your suit,” Zero said. “Anything we can do to help, let me know.”
“Solid copy. Deploying drones.”
My drone swarm launched, a dozen hand-sized discs hovering off in every direction. They’d map the ship, direct me to the locations that mattered: through airshafts, service tunnels, into locations that I couldn’t reach.
See what you can see, I ordered.
AFFIRMATIVE, the swarm responded.
I approached the next blast door. That was sealed shut, but it had a reinforced window set into the door. Through that I could see a half-dozen figures in hard-suits: Shadow commandos. I read their bio-signs on my scanner, but I didn’t need that to smell their fear. Even in vac, they reeked of it. Of course, I’d lost the element of surprise, but that didn’t matter anymore.
I slammed my foot against the door with as much force as I could muster. The hatch gave way with a single blow, the next corridor decompressing just like the first. These guys stood firm, mag-locked to the deck, and opened fire on me.
I cleared the remains of the hatch and waded in.
The firefight was brief and lethal. Not so much for me—I survived it with barely a scratch on my suit—but for the Directorate commandos. I took out two full squads of Shadows, maybe twenty troopers in all. But that was just an estimate, because it was difficult to tell exactly how many I’d killed from what was left of them.
“I’ve reached the next junction,” I said to Zero.
“The first flight-bay isn’t far from your location,” Zero said, her excitement obvious. “Keep going.”
“I always do.”
Adrenaline and fury drove me on, but a security hatch barred access to the next corridor. Most of the ship would be in lockdown now, standard starship protocol in the event of a boarding action. That was exactly what had happened aboard the Santa Fe when the Directorate had invaded. Kwan was going to know how that felt …
“More bio-signs moving on your position,” Zero said, reading my feed.
Nothing was going to stop me from reaching Kwan and Tang. I punched the hatch. The Pathfinder’s servos whined, more than a little pissed with my lack of finesse, but the powered armour went right through the metalwork.
“Grenade out.”
I tossed a frag through the hole in the hatch. It exploded a second later, clearing my path. Without pause, I ripped apart the door panels and made a gap wide enough to pull myself through. While it didn’t do any favours to the Pathfinder’s paint job, I didn’t care: I knew that neither I nor my equipment was coming back from this.
“More incoming!” said Zero.
“I see them, I see them.”
Yet more Directorate advanced behind me, trying to catch me in a pincer movement. Gunfire erupted, rounds spranging off the damaged hatch.
I thought fast. The suit still carried three demolition charges. Inside the Retribution, I knew that a single charge would be capable of causing significant damage. That would do, I decided.
I unpacked a demo-charge. Magged it to the wall, just as the first Shadow cleared the ruined hatch. He paused for a fraction of a second, glancing at me, the demo-charge, then back at me. His red-eyed goggles radiated confusion.
The charge indicator flashed amber.
The Directorate trooper pulled back, battle-signing to his comrades.
I turned and fired my EVAMP. Bounced down the corridor, the Pathfinder’s bulk grazing the deckhead as I went.
The demo-charge activated, and the corridor explosively decompressed. Bodies and equipment whirled around me—the response team in complete disarray. I braced against the wall, locking myself to the deck again as the entire ship seemed to shake with the aftereffects of the unexpected depressurisation.
“Holy Gaia …” Zero muttered.
I talked as I moved, plodding down the corridor. “You saw that, huh?”
“Of course we saw it.”
I did a quick equipment check. I had a decent complement of grenades, as well as power cells for my rifle.
“I’ve got two charges left,” I said. “I’m going to make them count.”
“Good idea,” said Zero. “It … it looks like you’ve hit some of the ship’s internal c
omponents.”
“I hope so.”
“Life support is going down. The drones report shifts in oxygen levels across the Retribution.”
I called up the drone intel network, and graphics on my HUD showed their progress. They had managed to map most of the ship now, from the bridge, at the Retribution’s nose, through to the flight-decks at her aft.
“I have a fix on Kwan and Tang,” Zero said. “They’re together. I’m flagging their location.”
“You do that.”
I rounded a corner, and met with hot rain from another security team. I tore a grenade from my combat webbing. Activated it, and tossed it at the defenders.
“Feng’s in a bad way,” Zero said. “His heart rate is off the scale.”
“Tell him to hang in there.”
The commandos kept firing, even as I killed them. One was torn apart by the explosion of the grenade. Another went down with a plasma pulse to the chest. There were probably more, but I didn’t even register them.
“Corridor clear,” I said. “Moving on.”
I found myself in a pressurised area of the ship. Maybe a door somewhere had sealed this section, in an effort to preserve atmo, or maybe the Directorate were conducting emergency repairs to stop me from hulling the place. It didn’t much matter: I had my objective. Characters glowed on the walls, directions to various locations around the ship.
FLIGHT-BAY ONE, my suit translated.
That was confirmed by the drones, now coordinating their surveillance efforts on the bay ahead. As well as being capable of vid-surveillance, the drones were equipped with audio receptors. I had to calm myself, to slow my pace, as I caught snippets of conversation. All in Korean, but my suit translated the words.
Kwan’s voice: “The agent is activated. We must move quickly to the next stage …”
Then Tang’s reply: “I need assistance, and now!”
She sounded in pain, a wet, lisping edge to her vocals. Her demand obviously wasn’t being made of Kwan.
Then, from somewhere on the bridge, an urgent communication for Commander Kwan’s attention: “… presence of a massed xeno fleet. We cannot safely continue at this location. Advise immediate retreat.”
