And then a dozen bodies—or what was left of them.
“Put us down there at the port side of Voyager,” Mach ordered.
“Consider it done,” Lassea replied.
Mach was proud of how quickly she had come along since her first mission with him. Especially considering the stakes of this particular mission. He didn’t credit the CWDF academy for her skill and resilience, though; that came from within her. He’d pushed her hard when she and her brother first joined up with him. She didn’t crack. She thrived and rose to the occasion to the point where he was comfortable giving up the pilot’s role, which had been solely his since his days in the CWDF.
She expertly handled the craft, engaging the landing thrusters to lower them slowly into position. The roar of the flames beneath them made the ship judder madly, rattling Mach’s teeth together before he clenched his jaw and anticipated the bump.
When they finally set down, their video feed on the viewscreen started to cut out.
“What is that?” Mach said, turning his attention to Tulula and Babcock to the right side of the bridge, where they sat at the communications and radio controls. Squid Two flittered about the pair of them, chirping in a concerned manner.
“What’s it saying?” Mach asked.
Babcock nodded to his little chrome familiar before explaining. “Active denial of radio signals coming from a position beyond the mountains, north of our position. Same thing that interrupted our connection with the drone and the fighter.”
“It’s especially strong,” Tulula added. “I’ve never seen a system quite like it. It’s interrupting across the entire spectrum; the power is incredible. We’re not going to be able to use our suit comms under that barrage.”
“This just gets increasingly more intriguing,” Mach said.
“I was thinking annoying,” Adira replied in her deadpan way.
“It’s not like you to be upset at us not being able to chitchat,” Mach said, giving her a wink. It wasn’t just for her benefit either. He wanted to make sure the crew kept their spirits up and their sense of curiosity as opposed to trepidation and fear. He needed them to make confident decisions without overly worrying about the consequences. That way led to self-doubt, and self-doubt led to getting a pulse rifle round in the face—or worse.
“I think I can clean up some of the interference,” Babcock said, lifting his spectacles and leaning closer to his holocontrol readouts. “The algorithm is a mutable one, which will prevent us from breaking through the signal jam completely anytime soon—not unless this ship has Mankovic Quantum Entity.”
“We don’t,” Mach said, rolling his eyes. The only organization to have one of those was, of course, the Commonwealth.
“None of this sounds like great news to me,” Sanchez growled, his thick eyebrows meeting above the bridge of his nose.
“It’s not all bad,” Tulula added with a soft tone. “Because it is shifting, we can possibly gain brief access to certain parts of the band.”
“But we need a signal router to carry out an interception,” Babcock said.
Mach sighed impatiently. “I just shoot guns and fly ships, Kingsley. Tell me what you need and let’s get it done. We need to investigate the crash site as soon as possible. Give me a solution.”
“What about Squid Two?” Lassea said.
The rest of the crew turned to face her. Mach was about to say that was a crazy idea when Babcock tapped his index finger against his chin and hummed for a moment as he looked up at his little floating companion. The chrome-bodied drone flickered its multiple limbs in a way that seemed to Mach as if imploring something to Babcock.
The scientist pointed at Lassea. “You’re more than just a pretty face and a great pilot, my girl. Squid Two would be perfect for this job.”
The little device beeped and hummed in what Mach thought wasn’t a polite exchange, given the way Babcock waved his hand at it. “Mach, we’ll send out Squid Two to explore the area. We can use my peer-to-peer transceivers to send back a line-of-sight signal, bypassing most of the jamming effect.”
“Do it,” Mach said. “Can its cameras be patched to the viewscreen?”
Babcock nodded and reached out for his spherical chrome invention. The drone hovered briefly above his hand, its limbs shaking, before setting down on Babcock’s palm. The scientist flipped a two-inch square lid and made some adjustments. Then, he let the drone hover back up again and headed to the bulkhead that led to the rear of the craft.
“Where are you going?” Mach asked.
“To get the transceivers and see my friend out of the airlock. You’ll get confirmation when the signal is routed to the screen. Tulula, can you handle that end of the chain while I deal with Squid Two?”
“Sure thing,” she said.
Babcock and the drone both left the bridge. Five minutes later the viewscreen crackled to life. The signal from Squid Two worked. Although it was fairly low resolution compared to their usual 8k video, it resolved enough detail for them to get a good look at Voyager and the surrounding area.
Babcock joined them in the bridge with a smile on his face. “It worked!”
“I had no doubt,” Adira said, giving the scientist a nod of her head.
“The transceivers were actually partly due to Tulula’s involvement,” he said, smiling at the vestan. “She helped me with the laser-transfer protocols. As long as two transceivers can receive each other, we’ll have a secure communication band unaffected by the jamming signal, though the bandwidth is low—as you can see. No live video, just still images and low-resolution voice audio.”
Mach was happy with whatever they had. It beat going out into the unknown. The images came quicker now, reminding Mach of an old-fashioned flip-book his parents had once shown him as a child, a relic from the pre-galactic-era Earth. The staccato movement created a clunky animation that eventually resolved to a movie within Mach’s mind as he visualized the crash and the debris falling from the long rusted blue hull of Voyager. Its exterior modulated to light colors on the edges of the panels where the Noven sun tipped over the edge of the horizon, bathing the ship in a warm glow of mid-afternoon.
Noven Alpha’s days lasted just nineteen standard Salus Sphere hours, meaning they had about four hours or so before the sun was due to set.
A thought came to him during the viewing of this slow-frame movie: where was all the crew? The answer didn’t take long in coming. Squid Two was scanning the area in a grid pattern, sending back images so that they overlapped, giving the crew a thorough survey of the surrounding area.
On the edge of the tree line, two bodies—or at least suits—in OreCorp colors were strewn around the base of a tree.
“Is that… blood?” Adira said, leaning forward over her station to get a better look at the still image.
“Squid Two, pause, magnify,” Babcock said, ordering his drone to go farther in.
The larger image appeared slowly on the screen, the detail starting out as blocky pixels at the top but soon, within a few seconds, it became sharper.
The crew inhaled when the image zoomed in on the suits’ helmets.
“Oh shit,” Sanchez said.
“What the fu…” Adira shook her head.
Tulula and Lassea looked back at Mach, their foreheads wrinkling with concern.
“It’s the same effect we saw in the pit,” Mach said, remembering back to the pit on Beta. “Whatever was there got the OreCorp crew too.”
Like the previous bodies, the two on the image looked desiccated. As if something had sucked out everything from within, leaving just a powdery shell of skin pulled tight around their teeth, the lips stretched wide in a frozen artifact of sheer terror. The suits were almost whole—except for a small rip in the chest of each one. It didn’t take a genius to guess what had happened.
“The rest of the crew must be around here somewhere,” Sanchez said. “I can see at least four pairs of distinct prints in the mud. Given the way the branches and leaves have been trod
den, it looks like another pair went south behind the ship—probably to the rear.”
“Perhaps they were getting the bomb from the hold,” Adira said, “but then… that happened.”
“Babcock, can you send Squid Two to Voyager’s cargo bay? I want to see if the hold ramp is down. If so, let’s get a look at what’s inside—if anything.”
The old scientist nodded and turned to his workstation, jabbering orders to Squid. Within a few seconds, the images coming back showed the stern of the ship. The hull was charred where it met the muddy ground. The sides of the hull were badly damaged and a number of broken tree trunks lay strewn beneath and beside the craft. More twisted metal debris and equipment trailed out, going south back into the ship’s landing scar.
“It’s closed,” Babcock said. “Squid can’t get inside… but, wait… the airlock is open on the portside.”
“Send it in,” Mach ordered.
Squid Two’s OLED light gave the dark interior a ghostly pale shade, the beams reflecting off dulled metal bulkheads and paneled walls. The drone flew throughout the ship, shining its light in every nook and cranny. The ship looked deserted; there were no weapons in the armory, no food in the mess, and no crew anywhere—and worst of all, no bomb.
The drone circled back and left the ship.
Mach sighed and slumped down into his captain’s chair. A part of him expected an easy recovery: just go into Voyager, find the weapon, arm it, then get the hell out of there, but the other cynical side of him had always known it wouldn’t be that easy.
With the evidence of a new menace on the planet, it stood to reason that the weapon had likely been intercepted—but who, or what, knew Voyager was coming out here? Other than its captain, Marcia Sereva, and the OreCorp chairman, there was no one as far as he knew.
Lassea pointed to the right of the viewscreen. “Freeze there,” she said. “I think there’s movement.” They were still watching still images, so it was difficult to see, but as Squid Two slowly went back through the frames Mach saw that Lassea was correct; there was indeed movement coming from the south edge of Squid’s field of view.
“Turn ninety degrees,” Mach ordered.
Babcock passed on the order. Together as one, the crew leaned forward as the new images came in. One by one, at roughly two frames a second, they watched in horror as a human in a four-meter-tall combat ground mech—an OreCorp Security Division CGM—burst from the tree line and into view, its domed gray canopy swiveling on its brushed steel biped legs. Two Gatling guns hanging off its shoulders belched a burst of rounds back towards where it had come from.
It continued to back up toward Voyager, using the edge for cover. A controlled burst of fire came from the deadly Gatling guns. Through the steelglass cockpit window, the face of a middle-aged male grimaced; panic sweat shone sickly on his pale face.
“Adira, suit up. We’re going out to help—he could be the only survivor,” Mach said, already halfway off his chair when Squid Two’s latest image updated, showing a pair of gigantic spiderlike creatures standing at least three meters tall launch at the CGM.
Mach halted and turned back to face the screen.
Sanchez stood and wiped his face as though he wasn’t really seeing clearly. Tulula staggered back. The image updated: the spider creatures were closer now, parts of their carapace splitting off their torso. A pair of pincerlike hands extended from their bony flesh-colored chests.
One of them tried to flank the CGM, but the pilot swiveled in time and swung a heavy metal fist, connecting with the creature’s head. The thing took the hit, stumbled back on its spindly legs, its sharp-clawed feet digging into the ground for balance, before its weight swung back like a pendulum, launching itself back at the pilot.
The alien and the CGM battled for supremacy, guns firing, organic versus mechanical limbs.
“We’ve got to get out there,” Mach said, regaining his focus despite the tremble that had broken out in his hands. He hated spiders at the best of times, but three-meter-tall ones? That was just damned wrong on a very fundamental level. “Babcock, we’ll bring you back a sample. What odds would you give me on these things being the owners of the eggshells from Beta?”
“I’m not a gambling man,” Babcock said. “You sure you want to go out there?”
It was too late; Mach had already left the bridge, Babcock’s voice echoing behind him. Adira was right behind him, following him down the long, narrow corridor toward the rear section of the craft.
The two entered the armory and quickly got suited up into their combat suits and took their heavy auto-rifles from the wall mounts. Mach holstered his favored rifle, his SamCore Stinger, over his shoulder as a backup. It didn’t have the firing rate of the CW auto-rifle.
“Take as much ammo as you can carry,” he said, doing the same, stuffing magazines into every compartment and onto every hard point of his suit. He grabbed a mix of armor-piercing, incendiary, and coranium-tipped shells. Before he closed his helmet down, he glanced at Adira and saw her eyes do that narrow focus thing whenever she was about to let the violent storm within herself out.
“Wait a moment,” Mach said, approaching her so he stood directly in front of her. “We don’t have any comms, so don’t do anything stupid and follow my lead. Got it?”
“We’re wasting time,” she said.
The sound of the Gatling’s roar told him she was right.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
Mach turned and approached the airlock that would lead out to approximately twenty meters away from the combat area. He initiated the exit procedure and got halfway when Sanchez burst into the room.
“Get back to the bridge,” Mach said. “You’re sick.”
Sanchez swore in response as he suited up with the slick speed of a professional. Within seconds, he stood by Adira, carrying the massive auto-cannon as though he had the strength of a CGM. Mach didn’t know how he was doing it, given the parasite leaching away his life.
Mach temporarily froze in the airlock, looking back at his friends. Were they in any state to do this? Sanchez was already sweating worse than the guy in the CGM and Adira was almost too focused. He worried she’d lose it; give in to her murderous rage. He’d seen that a few times. It wasn’t pretty—or safe for anyone around her. But a high-pitched scream, utterly alien in its sound, dragged him back to the job at hand: Save the pilot; find the truth.
“You gonna stand here forever?” Sanchez said, his voice reverberating through his helmet.
“I’ll take point, you lay down covering fire with that cannon… if you feel ill, get the hell out of there. Understood?”
Sanchez just growled and raised the barrel of the massive cannon toward the airlock door. Mach got the point. Adira moved up beside him and placed her hand tenderly on his back before she looked away and narrowed her focus again. She mouthed the words, “Do it.”
He opened the airlock and stepped out onto Noven Alpha.
Chapter Sixteen
The roar of gunfire rang in Mach’s ears. He collapsed to a knee and brought his rifle up to his shoulder, aiming the red-dot sights on the enemy. He took a deep breath, tried to calm his racing pulse and took in the scene before firing, aware that Sanchez was by his right-hand side, laying down heavy cannon fire on the two aliens. Adira had slunk off into the shadows, and Mach didn’t want to end up hitting her with not-so-friendly fire.
The CGM lifted one of the spider creatures and slammed its bulky, bony head against the hull of Voyager. The thick carapace armor didn’t give, however. The alien slashed back with its multiple, claw-ended limbs, beating back the pilot and his mech through sheer strength and animal power.
Mach had never seen anything like these before. They didn’t seem to slow down one bit regardless of their injuries. The one the pilot had smashed against the ship righted itself and prepared to attack, the two bone-colored limbs protruding from its torso lashing out at the steelglass canopy of the CGM.
The light was getting dull, Mach realiz
ed, unable to make out the details of the movement from either side of the landing scar. The trees rustled and moved, indicating the alien creatures had backup, but he couldn’t determine their likely number with much accuracy. Nor where Adira had gone.
A roar of automatic fire erupted from the CGM, the pilot having regained his wits sufficiently to react to the creature’s attack. The rounds slammed into the carapace, ripping it to shreds, yet the thing kept on smashing against the CGM’s canopy. Mach got to his feet and dashed fifty yards closer, daring to expose himself in the middle of the trench. He needed to in order to get an angle on the single remaining alien. Sanchez moved up with him, providing cover with the loud, booming shots from the cannon.
To Mach’s dismay, Sanchez’s aim was off, the great heavy shells missing their target and slamming great holes into Voyager’s stern. Using the red-dot sight, Mach aimed for what looked like a gap between the carapaces on the back of the alien. With no hesitation he pulled the trigger and fired the full clip of eighteen coranium-tipped shells.
The beast roared with a high-pitched scream that penetrated through Mach’s helmet and the din of the surrounding gunfire. The creature fell forward, arching its torso and flinging its limbs high as if trying to make one last desperate attack on the CGM, but it fell short, and the pilot inside the mech raised a bulky metal foot and slammed it down on the alien’s head, crushing it into the ground until the alien stopped twitching.
Mach rose to his feet and sprinted the twenty meters to the mech. Although they wouldn’t be able to hear each other, Mach mouthed the words, “We’re here to help.” He pointed to the man in the mech and then up at the silhouette of the Intrepid.
The man shook his head and raised the mech’s arm, pointing to the tree line.
Following the direction the pilot pointed, Mach turned to see Adira slink away from the shadows of the tree and head back toward him, but behind her, the movement increased, and from the dense wooded border, a dozen or more of the creatures exited. Mach shared an expression of horror first with the pilot, then Sanchez, who had joined them. Sanchez was reloading the cannon. Mach installed a new magazine of incendiary rounds into his auto-rifle.
The Lost Voyager: A Space Opera Novel Page 12
