Dust & Iron (Adventures of the Starship Satori Book 9)

by Kevin McLaughlin

  There were no guards outside the doors, though. The bugs had to be watching them on camera at this point. They had to know the humans were all but knocking on their doorstep. It was stop her armor here, now, or lose control of their ship. Where was the trap?

  Even the bugs down on Dust had been capable of setting up ambushes. These ones were even more advanced. They ought to have the same traits, maybe with even greater intensity. The empty hall didn’t feel right.

  “Everyone hold up,” Charline said.

  The team froze. Halcomb was still leading the way. He half turned back toward her, keeping his guns trained ahead. “What’s up?”

  “It’s too quiet,” Charline said.

  “We haven’t met much resistance. Maybe they’ve thrown everyone at us that they had?” Tessa asked.

  “No, we’ve seen a few of them. They fled. The bridge should be through those doors. So where are they?” Charline asked.

  It was a rhetorical question. The rest of the team wouldn’t have any more idea than she did. Frustrating as hell. She knew there was a trap ahead. It was there, right in front of her, but she couldn’t see it! They had no choice but to advance, though. Time wasn’t on their side. Reinforcements would arrive soon, if they hadn’t already.

  “Move in, Halcomb. Tessa, have your team follow ten yards back and cover him,” Charline said. “Arjun, keep your squad watching our back. Be ready for anything.”

  Would the bugs come bursting out of the floor? The deck plates looked the same as she’d seen everywhere else on the ship. If they were any different, Charline couldn’t see it. Ceiling plates and wall plates looked the same as the floor.

  Wait – wall plates? Charline looked to her right and then her left. The walls were smooth and unbroken. It was like they’d been made of a single seamless piece of metal. But up ahead the walls were made in joined square sections, just like the floor and ceiling. That was where they had to be.

  “Halcomb, they’re in the walls!” Charline shouted. She dashed up alongside him with three fast bounds.

  Halcomb didn’t hesitate or ask stupid questions, thank god. He turned to face the right wall while she aimed her guns at the left. As one, they opened up with their weapons. Plasma beams blazed free, slashing into the panels. They sliced holes in the walls, which came apart in gouts of liquid metal. They were thin things, perhaps half an inch thick. Nowhere near as sound as the rest of the ship’s hull. Gunfire tore through them like they were paper.

  Squeals of pain and rage echoed across the hall as those beams ripped into the bugs hiding behind the thin shields. They burst out. Now that they’d been detected there was no reason to keep quiet.

  All of the bugs were armored. They had their own guns, and a few beams stabbed out as they rushed forward. One slapped Charline’s left arm with enough force to slam her backwards into Halcomb. His bulk kept her from pinwheeling to the ground. The flash of heat inside her cockpit told her that her armor was breached.

  Another beam stabbed into one of Tessa’s people. It slashed deep into the armor’s torso, boring a deep hole. The armor fell over forward. Charline saw smoke rising from a second hole in the armor’s back. She wasn’t sure who it was, but that was almost certainly a mortal hit.

  She screamed in rage and slashed sideways with her beams, firing as rapidly as she could. They’d overheat and burn themselves out if she wasn’t careful. But if they didn’t stem this tide, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  Two bugs jumped her, one grabbing hold of each arm. They slashed in with sharp talons, slicing into the armor shielding her. Their bulk dragged Charline down to her knees. She couldn’t aim the arm weapons. The bugs’ weight was so much that she couldn’t even lift her arms. Meanwhile, they were hacking their way through.

  “Shoulder gun!” Charline said. She hadn’t been using the weapon much, since it had such a low rate of fire. But all she needed was one good shot...

  The turret mount aimed with her vision. She looked the bug hanging from her left arm dead in the eyes. The pellet took it square in the center of its forehead.

  Charline didn’t see an exit wound. For all she knew, the energy ball bounced around inside the bug’s armor rather than punch back out. The effect was precisely what she’d hoped for, though. The bug’s head snapped back with the initial impact. Then it went limp and crashed to the deck. Her arm was free.

  A loud tearing sound heralded the victory of the other bug over Charline’s armor. The sharp blades finally sliced through, sheering her right arm clean off. Cool air washed across her shoulder and face through the new hole. Charline shuddered, thinking about what would have happened if her real arm had actually been inside that limb when it was severed.

  Luckily her attacker fell away along with the arm. It crashed to the deck, but it wasn’t slowed by the fall. The bug rolled sideways and started toward her legs. If it wrapped itself around her lower limbs, it could take her to the ground and tear her to bits from there!

  Charline pivoted on her left foot and stepped back with her right. She brought the left arm forward at the same time, aiming the plasma cannon directly at the bug. It saw the danger and tried to scramble away, but it had too much momentum to overcome quickly. Charline fired the cannon. It holed the insect’s armor, but it was still moving. She kept firing until it was still again.

  The hallway was full of smoke. Enough drifted in through the holes in Charline’s armor to make her cough. She whirled, looking for more enemies, but found none.

  “Are we clear?” she asked over the radio.

  “Looks like,” Halcomb said.

  Bodies were heaped everywhere. If the bugs had managed to catch them all in the hall, unaware, it probably would have been the humans left steaming on the deck plates.

  “We got lucky this time. Let’s end this before our luck runs out,” Charline said.

  “Looked more like it was our commander spotting an ambush before we walked into it,” Sing said.

  Charline was surprised at the respectful tone of voice he used. She’d expected him to be snide and rebellious. But there he was, giving her credit for the victory they’d all won.

  “Team effort, let’s say,” Charline said. She strode up to the massive doors blocking them from the bridge. “I’m down a gun. Halcomb, care to do the honors?”

  “With pleasure,” he replied. “Step back.”

  Once she was clear, he unleashed all his weapons. Two other armor units stood beside him, blazing away as well. The door was built to withstand enormous strains, but the designer had apparently not considered eight massive plasma cannons a likely threat. They melted through the door in under a minute.

  FORTY-TWO

  They rushed through the doors three abreast, guns raised and ready to blast apart anything that moved. Another row of three more armored troops came in directly behind the first wave. They were expecting heavy resistance. If the hall had been bad, what was the control center of the ship going to be like?

  It was empty.

  Stations were set into the walls around a room which was more or less oval, with one side sliced flat where the doors opened. Charline didn’t see any other exits from the room. She didn’t see any aliens, either.

  “Clear left!” Halcomb said.

  “Clear right!” Tessa said.

  “Where the hell are they?” Charline said. She strode into the center of the room, still wary. This seemed like an unfit place for an ambush, but they’d almost caught her people in the hall outside. She wouldn’t put it past the enemy to hit them again when their guard was down.

  “Check the walls, ceiling, and floors. Let’s make sure we don’t have any surprises waiting for us in here,” Charline said. “I want two armor units watching that hall at all times, though.”

  She popped the seal on her armor and stood. Smoke still curled from wires in her broken right arm. Damn, Halcomb was going to get on her case about that. She had to stop breaking her armor! Charline grinned, despite the dark odds against them. At least i
t was the armor breaking and not her.

  The thought made her smile vanish instantly. Two of her people lay dead in the hall outside. Isabella and Toni hadn’t survived the ambush. Charline’s own armor was badly damaged, as was Arjun’s. Halcomb’s “overkill” suit was covered with pock marks from all the times it had been peppered with plasma, but it was still running fine. They were running light on people and gear, and they were still nowhere close to home yet.

  She watched as Arjun and Sing hauled the two broken armor units out of the hall. They laid both across the doorway. It was good thinking. The armor would serve as cover if the bugs tried to rush them.

  But not with people still inside. Charline walked over to the first armor and keyed open the seal. Inside was Isabella, staring up at her with wide, dead eyes. Charline had to blink back tears. There wasn’t much blood, because the huge hole in the center of her chest had been cauterized by the blast that tore through her.

  Charline undid the harness holding her dead friend in place and took hold of her by the shoulders. It was difficult work, prying a body free from the constraints of the suit. Then a second pair of hands joined hers, making the work lighter.

  “We’ll see them safe home with us,” Halcomb said as he helped pull Isabella free from the suit. “They deserve that, and more.”

  “Thank you,” Charline replied. “We need to get Toni as well.”

  “I’ll see to it. You worry about getting this ship underway, eh?”

  “Right.” Charline snapped him a nod, confident he’d take care of their fallen with proper honor. He was correct. Her job was to get them all back home safely.

  She raced to her armor with renewed purpose and grabbed the control cube.

  Hooking it up was easy. She’d done this enough times that it was child’s play for her. But these computers were locked down much more tightly than the console in the hall. It was like hacking the small ship they’d captured, but even more complex. Charline’s brow crinkled in thought as she tapped commands into her tablet, trying different avenues to gain access.

  If she’d been attempting this hack from anywhere else in the ship, she didn’t think it would have been possible at all. These bugs had coded some intense safeguards! But gradually, she was able to work her way around them.

  The ship shuddered, tremors sounding beneath her feet.

  “What was that?” Tessa asked. “It sounded like something hit the ship!”

  Charline tapped a command and an area in the middle of the command room lit up, showing a projection of space with the alien vessel in the middle. All around the ship was a swarm of yellow dots like buzzing bees. One of them was marked purple. That one was firing on the mothership! Two more went purple as well as they joined the first in the attack.

  “Someone on the ship must have gotten out a distress call,” Charline said.

  “They’re willing to blow their own ship up?” Tessa asked.

  “Rather than let it fall into our hands? Yeah, it looks so,” Charline replied.

  She tapped another series of commands. The ship’s computer knew it was under attack and immediately allowed her command to raise the shields. On the projection, a white field shimmered into place around their ship. The hammering continued, but the impacts were much less intense.

  “The shields work. I don’t know how long they can hold out against all those ships, though,” Charline said.

  “What about the wormhole drive?” Halcomb asked.

  “I’m working on it!”

  The ship was still resisting her directives. It wasn’t an AI like Majel, but it was a more than competent machine. Charline didn’t have time to brute force her way through the system. Luckily, she didn’t have to. The programs she’d written to create the interface for the smaller ship helped gain access to this one as well. It still wasn’t simple, but...

  “There!” Charline said. On their display a beam of light shot forth from the nose of the ship. The whole vessel shook, and a high-pitched whining sound built up. “Everyone hang on!”

  The lights flickered, and the whining noise stopped abruptly. It hadn’t worked?

  Charline ran a system check of the wormhole drive with her tablet, trying to track down the source of the problem. It wasn’t the device itself. The drones had already managed to rebuild it. Where was the malfunction?

  “I take it that wasn’t what was supposed to happen?” Sing asked. There was a shuffle of large metal feet followed by a loud bang. Then Sing added, “Ow!”

  “Serves you right for mouthing off,” Halcomb muttered.

  “You didn’t have to smack my head!” Sing said.

  “Yes. Yes, I did,” Halcomb replied.

  Charline grinned, keeping her face buried in her tablet. Of all the people who could have been stuck on that dead planet with her, she was glad Halcomb had been there. They’d never have made it this far without him.

  The shuttle crew was up near the nose of the ship. Maybe they’d seen something that could help. It was past time to reach out to them and let them know what was going on, anyway.

  Charline tried her radio but couldn’t get a connection. There was just too much ship between them and the shuttle. Her people there were on their own.

  A beep brought her attention back to the tablet.

  “Got it!” Charline said.

  “What have we got?” Tessa replied.

  “Figured out why the drive shut off. It lost all power. There was a break in the conduit. Looks like they just shut it down near their power source in the engineering section,” Charline said. “We go down there, bust them up, turn the power back on, and we should be good to go.”

  She looked around the room, realizing some of them would need to stay put. They’d have to jump immediately after the power was restored. Every second counted, and the ship shaking from blasts striking its shields were a constant reminder of that.

  “Arjun, your armor is damaged, and you’re also the best person besides me to control this ship. You’ve got the con,” Charline said, grinning as she handed him the tablet. She’d always wanted to say that. “Tessa, stay in armor and cover him. Halcomb, you and Sing are with me. We’re going to take the fight to engineering.”

  She hopped back into her armor and closed the canopy, then set off confidently down the hall. Finding the bad guys wasn’t going to be hard, this time. Engineering was a straight shot down this long hallway that connected the bridge and engine room like a spinal cord. Storm the room, flip a switch, and they’d be home!

  FORTY-THREE

  Plasma fire streaked by overhead. Charline ducked, narrowly avoiding the blast.

  “You OK?” Sing asked from beside her. He fired a beam at the offending bug but missed.

  “Just about singed my hair that time!” she said. “But I’m still here.”

  They’d gotten bogged down in the doorway of the engine room. Charline was pretty sure there were only three, maybe four aliens inside. But they all had a clear field of fire toward the one entranceway and Charline couldn’t see precisely where they were hiding. The room was a mess of twisted pipes and machines. That made things even worse, since they had to watch where they were shooting. If a plasma beam shattered the wrong conduit, they might not be able to get home at all.

  Where the hell was Halcomb? He’d taken off, saying he had an idea. That was … Charline checked the time and found it had only been two minutes. It felt like so much longer. Time stretched out when you were exchanging gunfire.

  The ship shook hard enough to throw her against a wall. That was gunfire from outside, but the intensity had ramped up a lot all of a sudden. It almost felt like...

  “Char, the shields are down,” Tessa told her over the radio. “They blew airlocks on the port side. Three ships are maneuvering to dock with us.”

  The rest would follow soon after. Each of those ships had a crew of armored bugs. The few humans left would be overwhelmed in no time. If they didn’t jump now, it was all over.

  “Halco
mb! Do whatever you’re going to do now! We’re out of time,” Charline said, hoping the radio message reached him.

  “Never fear. The cavalry is here!”

  Charline looked around, trying to see where he was. It took her a second because it hadn’t occurred to her to look inside the engine room. There it was – a patch of ceiling glowing cherry red. As she watched, the red area turned to liquid and poured away, leaving a large hole in the ceiling. Halcomb’s armor jumped down through the hole, guns blazing.

  Three alien bugs popped up from hiding, all firing at the new attacker. Charline didn’t hesitate. She rushed forward, firing as she ran. Sing followed close behind her. With their attention on Halcomb, the bugs were exposed. Her first set of beams took one of them down. Halcomb managed a second. Sing took the third out.

  Panting, Charline stopped her armor in the middle of the engine room. They’d done it! Now, how could they get the power turned back on for the wormhole drive?

  “Look for a large conduit, folks. The wormhole drive uses enormous power. It’ll be a big pipe. Just have to find it and we can trace the line to wherever they stopped up the flow,” Charline said.

  “Boss? A big pipe like this?” Sing asked. “If so, we’ve got trouble.”

  She looked over at the pipe in front of him, elated at first. Then she saw the rest of the line.

  It wasn’t shut off. The foot-thick energy conduit was demolished. A section of it almost ten feet long had been burned away with plasma beams. It wasn’t accidental fire from the fight, either. That they might have been able to fix rapidly. But this mess? Charline shook her head. There was no way.

  “Charline, they’re docking. Fifteen seconds before the first ones make contact,” Tessa said.

  They were out of time. There might be one way to still make the jump, though. She didn’t have time to replace the conduit, but she could rig up a temporary fix that might just be able to carry enough current for one wormhole jump.