by G J Ogden
“You’re probably right,” Sterling said, finally admitting defeat. “It’s a shame though. If we had more captains with the grit that Fletcher showed at the Battle of Middle Star, we probably wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
“What would you have done?” Banks wondered, stirring Sterling from his musings. “Imagine if it was your wife on the planet, and you were ordered to leave her, knowing that she and the other colonists would be killed.”
“I’m not married, Mercedes,” said Sterling, defensively. He already didn’t like his first officer’s little thought experiment.
“Just imagine you are,” Banks hit back, not letting him off the hook. “Or imagine it’s me on that planet when the order comes in for you to withdraw. What would you do?”
Sterling scowled and folded his arms. “You know what I’d do, Mercedes. I’d leave,” Sterling replied, a little huffily. “Middle Star had little tactical value and the Fleet ships were needed to reinforce more critical sectors.”
“Then why defend what Fletcher did?” Banks said, sounding like a prosecution attorney grilling a witness.
“I’m not defending the reasons for his actions,” replied Sterling. “I just think Fleet could use a bit of Fletcher’s passion right now.”
“Passion?” repeated Banks, again looking a little stunned. “Passion was his whole problem, if you ask me. He was thinking with his pecker and not his head.”
“I didn’t ask you, actually,” Sterling hit back, a little peevishly. He was now growing annoyed by the conversation. “But if you want to get down to brass tacks, think of what’s happening now.” He took a step closer to Banks. “Earth is Fletcher’s wife, Mercedes, and we’re being asked to let it go. The UG and war-weary Fleet admirals have lost the hunger for battle. They already think we’ve lost, that’s why we have to fight for our home. We have to show them the Sa’Nerra can be beaten, even if that means flying in the face of orders.”
Banks cocked her head to the side and studied Sterling for a few moments, though she still looked unconvinced.
“I know what you’re trying to say, Lucas,” his first officer eventually answered, “and I don’t disagree that Fleet could do with growing a pair of clanging steel balls.”
“But…” said Sterling, mimicking his first officer.
“But Fletcher isn’t anything like you or me,” Banks continued. “In fact, he’s the opposite of us. He fought to save someone he cared about. We make the impossible decisions, even if it means killing the ones we love.”
Sterling frowned, intrigued by the phrasing of Banks’ last sentence. However, he didn’t get a chance to quiz his first officer before Lieutenant Shade came jogging over from the entrance to the Fleet complex.
“Captain, Commander, we’ve found the entrance to the underground vaults,” Shade said, sounding slightly breathless. “There are signs of several attempts to break into them, but nothing that appears recent, and nothing that was successful either.”
Shade then sucked in another deep lungful of the cool hillside air and rested her hands on her hips. Sterling imagined that his weapons officer had just run the entire distance from the vaults back to the landing pad in order to relay her report.
“Thank you, Lieutenant, but why are you not using neural comms?” Sterling asked, curious as to the purpose of the weapon’s officer’s unexplained calisthenics.
“Neural comms can’t penetrate below the surface, sir,” Shade answered. She then gestured to the dark stone surface of the landing pad. The smooth rock glistened under the evening sun, as if it had been sprinkled with a wafer-thin coating of glitter. “There’s something in these rocks. Lieutenant Razor says it scatters the signal. She’s working on building some portable relays, in addition to modifying the relays on the ship to work with the new boosters.”
Sterling then looked over at the Invictus and saw Lieutenant Razor standing on top of the hull. She had an equipment bag at her side and was working on one of the external transceiver antennae.
“What the hell is she doing up there?” said Banks, who had also spotted the engineer.
“Planning to fall to her death from the looks of it,” Sterling replied. He tapped his neural interface then began pacing back toward the ship. The connection formed to Razor, but the signal was choppy and weak.
“Lieutenant, we have repair drones that can do that work,” said Sterling through the link. He had opened it so that Banks could monitor.
“Aye, sir, but they can’t do it as well as I can,” replied Razor, while continuing to work on the antenna. “Besides, I like to be hands-on.”
“And I like my engineer to be one piece, rather than pancaked onto the rocks below the ship,” Sterling hit back. “Finish what you’re doing then get back to the bridge. That’s an order.”
There was a brief silence, during which time Sterling could see Razor wrestling with a wrench. If her foot slipped or she took even a single pace back, the engineer was liable to fall forty meters to her death.
“Aye, Captain,” Razor finally replied, tossing the wrench back into her equipment bag. “I’m all done, anyway, though I’ll still need to test and calibrate the system, so you’ll be radio dark down in the vaults for a little while longer.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” replied Sterling shaking his head. If it wasn’t aliens, vengeful Marshalls or turned Fleet crew trying to kill them, it was their own eccentricities.
“Sir, I have a commando squad standing by with breach gear and cutting tools ready to break into the vaults,” Lieutenant Shade announced, oblivious to the dressing down the ship’s engineer had just received. “Commander Banks and I are ready to proceed on your order.”
“Get them ready to move out at once, Lieutenant,” said Sterling, turning to his weapon’s officer. “But grab an extra set of body armor and a pistol for me too. I’m coming with you.”
“Aye, Captain,” Shade replied before briskly moving toward the lowered cargo ramp of the ship.
“I didn’t have you down as a tomb raider,” said Banks, with a wry smile. “Are you hoping to find some buried treasure?”
Sterling smiled. “In a manner of speaking,” he answered, slapping Banks on the shoulder and setting off toward the steps that led down into the old Fleet complex. “There might be some vintage Fleet meal trays in storage down there. And knowing your tendency to hide away the good ones for yourself, there’s no way I’m letting you inside those vaults without me.”
Chapter 8
What lies beneath
A drop of freezing cold water fell from the ceiling of the tunnel complex below the abandoned Fleet base and rolled down the back of Sterling’s neck. A shiver ran down his spine and he slapped his hand to the spot, as if he’d just been stung by a wasp. Shining his torchlight up, he could see thousands more shimmering globules of water clinging to the ceiling, just waiting to drop more ice-cold bombs onto his head.
“Your earlier quip about tomb raiding seems oddly appropriate now,” said Sterling, returning his torchlight to the corridor ahead. The beam of light illuminated the back of Commander Mercedes Banks, who was a short distance ahead of him. “It feels like no-one has been down here for thousands of years, never mind just a few decades.”
Banks smiled, appearing far more at ease in the dank underground complex than Sterling was, then continued to survey ahead. She pushed through a door, which creaked like a coffin lid from an old horror movie, stepped over the threshold and peered inside.
“It looks like the crew left in a hurry,” she said, shining her light inside the room.
Sterling followed Banks into the space and discovered that it was one of the crew quarters. “It looks like the place has been ransacked,” he commented, sweeping his light across the rows of empty beds.
Sterling moved further inside, his boots clacking resonantly against the hard, sodden floor. An assortment of unidentifiable bric-a-brac and personal effects lay scattered across beds and bedside tables. He spotted a collection of old photog
raphs that had been left on one of the chests of drawers. Curious, he walked over and picked one up, shining his torchlight onto the faded and moisture-damaged image. In the photo was a Fleet Crewman First-Class standing with a woman in typical civilian colony clothing. The man had his arm wrapped around the woman’s waist and was holding her left hand, highlighting a ring on the fourth finger; an engagement band with a clear stone in the center. Out of the corner of his eye, Sterling caught the glint of something metallic on top of the drawer unit. Adjusting the angle of the torchlight, he saw that it was the same ring from the photograph. A simple silver band with a shimmering stone that, unlike everything else in the room, had not lost its luster. Together, the two items told a story, Sterling thought. Though he also had a feeling it was a story that did not end as happily as the two people captured in the photo appeared.
“Diamonds are forever,” said Banks, appearing behind Sterling’s right shoulder and adding her torchlight to the ring on the drawer unit. “Unlike that happy couple, I suspect,” she added with a darker, unfeeling tenor.
“I wonder how many of them mutinied and joined Fletcher’s little rebel troupe,” Sterling mused, tossing the photograph back onto the top of the drawer unit.
“I wonder how many are still alive,” Banks replied. She had already moved away to the other side of the room. “This all happened more than forty years ago. That’s a long time to survive in the Void.”
A voice echoed along the corridor outside. Sterling instinctively placed his hand on the grip of his pistol and hustled back toward the corridor. Banks arrived moments later, weapon in hand. Sterling then saw the flicker of a torchlight moving toward him. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare and saw that it was Lieutenant Shade. Sterling and Banks glanced at each other; the relief evident in one another’s eyes.
“This place is beginning to creep me out,” said Sterling as his weapon’s officer approached. “The sooner we’re done here the better.”
“The cutting team has almost broken through, Captain,” reported Shade, lowering the torchlight so that she was no longer blinding him.
“Are there any further indications that others have been down here recently, Lieutenant?” Sterling asked as Banks stepped out of the crew bunk room, holstering her weapon again.
“It’s hard to say, sir,” Shade replied. “The damp and constant drip of water from the ground above would mean that any recent tracks will have been obscured.” Shade then shone her torch at the seam between the wall and the ceiling. “I’m afraid they didn’t build this base to last.”
Sterling followed the path of the beam and saw a crack running through the surface. He shone his own torch along other sections of the walls and ceilings, noting several other hairline cracks and larger fractures.
“Most of this base would have been 3D-printed on-site,” commented Sterling. “There would have been plans to build a more permanent structure, but the outbreak of war put paid to that.”
“Hopefully, the vaults have remained intact,” said Banks, stepping further along the corridor and shining her light into the darkness. “We should get down there. There’s nothing else in this base but ghosts.”
Shade led the way through the maze of corridors until they reached a wide staircase that descended to the storage areas. Sterling was about to follow Shade down the flights of stairs when something caught his eye. He stopped and shone his light onto the landing area across the far side of the staircase.
“Lieutenant, have you or your team been along this corridor?” Sterling asked, frowning down at the marks in the grime on the floor.
“No, sir, my team went directly to the vaults,” Shade replied, jogging back up the steps to Sterling’s side. The weapon’s officer added her torchlight to Sterling’s, illuminating the area more clearly. With the extra light, Sterling could see that the grimy scuff marks on the floor extended down the opposite flight of stairs and into the storage level.
“We didn’t go down this corridor, did we?” Sterling asked Banks, who had also moved back onto the landing. “This place all looks the same to me in the dark.”
Banks shook her head. “No, we didn’t get this far. Whoever made those marks, it wasn’t us.”
Sterling sighed and clipped his torch to the shoulder attachment on his body armor before drawing his pistol. “Then if it’s not us, we’re not alone down here, after all,” he said, ominously.
Shade and Banks also attached their lights to their armor and held their weapons ready. The three officers then stood back-to-back on the landing, covering the three exits. The damp, cold air inside the complex felt suddenly colder, as if a malevolent spirit had just floated through the corridors and passed through their bodies. Sterling tapped his neural interface and tried to reach the squad of commandoes. However, his mind was merely swamped by a hazy white noise, like an old de-tuned radio. Cursing, he tried to reach out to Lieutenant Razor, but his attempts to form a link to his engineer were similarly ineffective.
“Damn it, Razor hasn’t got the neural relays online yet,” Sterling said, sweeping his weapon along the dark corridor.
“Do we go on or go back?” said Banks, who was covering the corridor behind Sterling.
Another drop of freezing cold water trickled down the back of Sterling’s neck, but this time he didn’t try to wipe it away. He welcomed the sudden, icy shock, which acted like a splash of water to his face, sharpening his senses.
“We go forward,” he said, with determination. “I don’t care if this place is plagued by the undead spirits of deceased Fleet crew. Nothing is stopping us from getting those supplies.”
Sterling moved out first, cautiously stepping down the stairs to the storage level. Flicking his eyes between the steps and the route ahead, he following the swirling marks on the grime-covered floor that had been left behind by the unknown intruder.
“Straight ahead then second right,” said Shade, as Sterling reached the foot of the staircase.
Sterling nodded then moved ahead, observing that the swirling marks on the ground had multiplied and appeared to spread in all directions. A scraping noise filtered along the corridor to their side and Sterling froze, holding up a clenched fist to the others. The clack of their boots on the hard floor stopped, and all that remained was the sound of their breathing, and the drip, drip of water from the fractured ceiling. The scratching sound then came again, sharp and frantic against the deathly stillness of the underground compound. Shade indicated ahead, pointing two fingers into the darkness like a pistol.
“Let’s do this,” whispered Sterling, glancing to Banks and Shade in turn. “A straight up power play, nothing fancy.”
Shade and Banks both nodded then got ready to move. Sterling again led the way, creeping along the corridor and following the tracks left behind by whomever or whatever was stalking them. The scratching sounds came again, growing louder and clearer the further Sterling ventured into the belly of the complex. Shade then threw up a signal to stop before indicating that there were enemies ahead. Sterling pressed himself up against the wall beside the junction of the corridor where the noises were coming from. Heart thumping in his chest, he checked that Banks and Shade were in position then gave the signal to attack.
The trio of Omega officers burst out into the corridor in perfect synchronization. The combined effect of their torchlights shining along the passageway was dazzling and for a moment Sterling was blinded. Suddenly the scratching sounds rose to a piercing screech and Sterling saw the silvery eyeshine of an animal racing toward him.
“Fire!” Sterling called out, aiming as best he could and squeezing the trigger.
The fizz and flash of plasma weapons was followed by a shrill yowl as the unknown beast was hit and sent down. Then as the corridor again fell into partial darkness, Sterling could see the shine of yet more eyes ahead, like stars piercing the veil of night. He couldn’t count them all, but he knew that the numbers were greater than he, Shade and Banks could handle alone.
&n
bsp; “Fall back!” cried Sterling backing along the corridor and retracing his steps. Then he turned and saw more silver discs of light along the adjacent corridor. Cursing, he glanced back in the direction they had come and the same shining dots in the darkness peered back at him.
“We’re surrounded,” said Banks, opening fire to Sterling’s rear. “They've been hunting us!”
“And we walked right into their trap,” Sterling replied.
One of the beasts darted out of the shadows and Sterling fired hitting the creature on its flank. The animal fell a few meters from his feet, writhing in agony. However, it also gave Sterling his first clear look at the beast. It resembled a wolf, but with a head that was more akin to a bear. Its skin was leathery and its limbs stocky with highly-developed shoulder muscles on its front legs that gave it a lopsided appearance. It was a powerful-looking animal that had clearly evolved to kill.
“Keep moving,” Sterling called out as more flashes of plasma fire lit up the corridors.
The scratches of the beasts’ claws on the floor were now matched only by the howls of pain as they fell. However, the creatures kept coming, undeterred by the deaths of the others in their pack. Banks reached the foot of the staircase and began to climb, but was then faced with two more of the creatures on the landing. She fired, but both creatures had already stalked away into the darkness and her shots flew wide.
“Reloading!” Banks called out, releasing the energy cell in her pistol and slapping in a new one.
Sterling turned to cover his first officer but was then pummeled in the back and knocked to the cold, wet floor. It felt like he’d just been tackled by a gorilla. A close-range blast from a plasma pistol blinded him, then the weight was lifted from his back. He spun over and saw Shade at his side, standing over the body of the dead creature. The rank odor of burned flesh assaulted Sterling’s senses even more severely than the creature had done. It was a smell he seemed unable to escape from for long.
