Grover was on one knee, tweaking the settings on his med-box. He paused to look upwards at McKinney and his voice was utterly calm. “I don’t care how many times the sensor scans tell Captain Blake this spaceship is safe, we have the proof right here it isn’t.”
It was time for McKinney to confront the same truth. “I agree. And it’s waking up.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. I think it is.”
“We’re not leaving without this one.”
“It doesn’t want to fall asleep. It’s either resistant or immune to the drugs the med-box is pumping into it. I think its circulatory system is so slow everything is taking time to work.”
“Keep on it.”
“How are you going to get it off this post?”
“I’m going to shoot through its restraints.”
“That’s more likely to…”
“Yes, I know.”
If the squad had been jumpy before, the booming noise and the changes to the lighting in the room had left them close to breaking point. McKinney warned them again to hold steady and hoped his words would be sufficient.
“I think that’s done it,” said Grover.
The Vraxar’s eyes changed from open and alert, to closed, over the course of two or three seconds. It was enough for McKinney.
“Stand back,” he said.
He aimed his gauss rifle at the band around the alien’s neck, doing his best to ensure any unwanted ricochets would fire off deeper into the room.
“Come on,” said Roldan over the comms. “Do it.”
McKinney fired from point-blank range. The gauss slug pinged off into the distance, leaving the collar damaged. He fired again and this time the alloy collar split close to where it joined the pillar. McKinney dropped his rifle, pushed his fingers between the collar and the Vraxar’s thin neck, and pulled.
The metal was strong, but so was McKinney. The muscles on his arms bunched and he twisted the metal of the collar until it was bent right back. The Vraxar sagged forward and only the post embedded in its back prevented it from sliding to the floor.
McKinney picked up his rifle and took the two paces which brought him to the far side of the support post. The wristbands were adjustable and they’d been drawn tight against the alien’s flesh. It was going to be messy.
A couple of shots got the first arm free. The second cuff wasn’t so forthcoming and it required four shots from the gauss rifle to fracture the metal. One of the shots ricocheted into the Vraxar’s flesh, taking off three of its fingers. A green fluid dripped slowly onto the floor – whether it was blood or something from the conversion process, McKinney didn’t want to guess. He tore its arms free from the restraints, at which point it fell off the post and landed face-down on the floor with a crack.
“Why didn’t you catch it?” McKinney demanded.
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” said Whitlock.
“We want it alive.”
“It’ll have a sore head when it comes around,” said Garcia.
“Shut up, you idiot! Pick it up and get it into the conversion room.”
Neither of the two soldiers wanted to touch the Vraxar. Their fear of McKinney’s likely response was greater and they put their arms beneath its shoulders and dragged it towards the rest of the squad. Grover hurried after them, keen that the needle from his med-box remain in the alien’s heart.
McKinney came out last, sparing one final glance around this room. He wondered if he should ask Clifton to leave a few explosive charges behind. He dismissed the idea – the room was far too large for anything the squad’s boom man was carrying. He sincerely hoped Captain Blake would destroy the Neutraliser from orbit when he heard what it was carrying.
He was just entering the conversion room when he heard a crackling on the comms channel. It wasn’t coming from his own squad. The sound came again and he made out a voice so faint the words were unrecognizable.
“Repeat!” he shouted into the channel.
The words were repeated, stronger this time, though still not clear enough to understand.
“That’s Corporal Evans!” said Garcia.
“We shouldn’t be able to hear him from here,” said McCoy.
“No, we shouldn’t,” said McKinney.
“Well, what’s he…”
“Shhh!” said McKinney, straining to hear. If Corporal Evans was audible on the comms, that meant he was close by. And if he was close by, he’d come looking for McKinney and his squad. Whatever the reason for Corporal Evans’ actions, it didn’t seem likely to be good news.
The distraction caused McKinney to slow in his stride and he berated himself for it. “Come on,” he urged. “We’re heading to the shuttle.”
At that moment, Corporal Evans burst through the opposite entrance into the conversion room, at the head of his squad. They slid to a halt and McKinney could imagine exactly what they were thinking.
“Lieutenant?” stammered Evans, his breathing heavy from running.
“Try to pretend you haven’t seen this room. We’re leaving.”
“You know about the ship?”
“What?”
“Captain Blake sent us. This whole Neutraliser is going to blow and we don’t want to be near when it happens.”
“Damnit, how long?”
“I’m not sure, sir. The Abyss is working on an estimation. It could be anything between one hour and three. Maybe more, maybe less.”
“Don’t you just love the precision of science?” said Vega.
“You got exactly five fingers on your new hand, didn’t you?” asked Garcia. “How much more precise do you want it?”
“Shut the hell up! This whole ship is going to explode and you still can’t stop pissing about,” snarled McKinney. “Just for that, you get to carry this Vraxar all the way out.”
“Just me?”
“No, but you’ve got the left arm for the whole way, while the rest of us get to swap out. I’d suggest you get boosting.”
“His suit probably ran dry before we left the Abyss.”
“Is that you volunteering as well, McCoy?”
“No, sir.”
“You still get first shift, along with Roldan and Munoz. Right, you four - pick up our alien friend and don’t drop him. We’ve got a long distance to run and not a lot of time to do it in.”
It was clear when McKinney wasn’t in the mood for wisecracks and the four men stooped to pick up the unconscious Vraxar. Grover remained close, anxiously watching his med-box for signs of the alien coming out of its induced coma.
They headed across the conversion room, starting slowly in case they fell on the blood-slick floor. Corporal Evans and his men were still in a state of shock, the feeling compounded for those curious enough to look into the room filled with Vraxar.
It was Elias Mack who saw the impending problem. He walked cautiously through the conversion room, until he was facing directly into the storage room.
“Lieutenant? There’s something moving in there.”
Within the anonymity of his reflective visor, McKinney closed his eyes. “You’re shitting me? What sort of movement?”
“I’m definitely not shitting you, Lieutenant. There’s movement from about a hundred sources.”
The sound of Mack’s plasma repeater brought the seriousness of it home and tracers of white-hot plasma slugs streaked away. A large shape thumped to the floor near the doorway.
“We need to get out of here,” said Mack in the no-nonsense tones of a man with twenty years of frontline experience. His confidence was astounding given that he was only twenty-six years old. “We’re going to be overrun in about one minute.”
McKinney stared in horror as he saw what was coming.
Chapter Nine
“Close the damn door!” McKinney shouted.
“How do I do that?” asked Mack, turning his head to the left and right to see if he could figure out what he needed to do.
“Just stick your hand on the panel!”
“There’s a pa
nel on the opposite side in the other room,” said Grover. “As soon as it’s closed, they’ll be able to open it again.”
Mack wasn’t a man to hang about. While Grover was speaking, he found the panel and smacked his hand against it like he was giving a high-five to his Friday night drinking partner. The door dropped like a stone, fast enough to crush anything caught underneath.
“What now, sir?”
McKinney had a flash of inspiration. More or less every Space Corps door was controlled by a pair of access panels – one on each side of the door. There was always one panel which had priority over the other and it was usually the panel that allowed people out of a room, presumably so no jokers could keep people trapped in a meeting room by leaving their hand planted on the access panel.
“Leave your hand on it!” he yelled. “The rest of you, cover that door!”
“Yes, sir.”
Mack thumped his palm to the access panel again and held it there.
“Keep your fingers crossed that’s the primary panel.”
“I’m not sure I want to cross them while my hand is pressed here, sir.”
“What do we do now?” asked Evans.
“You aren’t planning to leave me here are you?” asked Mack.
“No,” said McKinney. “We need to seal that door and we need to do it quickly. Clifton, do you have anything that can burn it shut?”
“You only have to ask and its done, sir.”
“I’m asking. Do it.”
Clifton made his way quickly over the bloody floor, using one hand to steady himself on the biers. He had a pack filled with charges and further explosives attached to a specially-designed belt slung across his chest. While the other soldiers carried grenades, Clifton had a different explosive for every day of the week. He reached the door and knelt, rummaging through his pack with one hand whilst the other pulled at the charges on his bandolier.
“You’re doing a fine job, Mack,” he said.
“Standing with my hand on a panel is exactly they trained me for.”
A couple of men from Evans’ squad were near to the window and they did their best to wipe clean an area through which they could see. Ronnie Horton produced a cloth from somewhere and cleared a gleaming arc through the dirt. There was movement on the other side – lots of movement. An object thumped against the window and Horton flinched.
“This is really not good,” he stammered.
“Horton, Guzman, get back here,” said McKinney.
Meanwhile, Clifton fixed his plasma charges around the edge of the door. He could be fastidious when it suited him, but not today – he stuck a dozen tiny limpet charges in apparently random places. Each time he activated one, a bright blue light illuminated on the explosive.
“Done,” he said, retreating a few metres from the door.
“What about me?” asked Mack.
“It was nice knowing you, kid. When these charges go off, you’ll die. We’ll raise a glass in your memory.”
“You bastards!”
“Clifton, pack it in!” roared McKinney. The last thing he wanted was for Mack to lose his bottle and run away from the access panel.
“Sorry, Lieutenant – I thought he might appreciate the joke.”
McKinney clenched his hands tightly, wondering what it would feel like to wring Clifton’s neck. He was saved from the temptation when the charges went off. They didn’t explode as such; rather, they detonated with a low, angry fizzing sound, accompanied by a bright blue flaring light. The light remained for fifteen or twenty long seconds before it burned out. The soldiers fidgeted while they waited, anxious to be going, yet unwilling to leave anyone behind. The Vraxar continued pounding on the window and everyone was glad to see it had been built to withstand this level of physical punishment.
“Done?” asked McKinney.
Clifton hurried to check over the results of his handiwork. There were numerous patches on the door where the alloy had melted and dripped, joining the door with the frame.
“Might be enough,” he said.
“Can I take my hand off this panel?”
“The metal needs to cool and harden.”
“How long will that take?”
It was obvious Clifton wanted to continue his one-sided joke with Mack, but he didn’t want a kick in the balls from McKinney and kept his answer straight.
“Not long. It’s hardening already.”
“Whatever they use to lift that door it has a lot of grunt,” said McKinney.
“If it’s strong enough to rip the door open, we’ll die,” Clifton replied with a shrug. “There’s no way I can kill everything in that room with the stuff I’m carrying.” He stooped and thrust one of his fingers at the reformed metal. “Done.”
“Does that mean I can…?”
“Yup.”
Mack pulled his hand off the access panel and aimed a mock-cuff at Clifton’s head. Then, the two of them began jogging across the room.
There were occasions when it was best to speak the obvious, for the absolute avoidance of doubt. “We are going to get out of here as quickly as possible,” said McKinney, urging the men towards the conversion room doorway. “We have no idea how many exits there are from that other room and it makes sense for there to be more than one. If anything moves, shoot it.”
“I would highly recommend everyone utilises their spacesuit emergency boosters,” said Grover.
The response to the medic’s suggestion was muted – a few of the soldiers gave an acknowledgement, whilst the rest said nothing. McKinney suspected most of them had already taken the maximum dose of battlefield adrenaline which the suits would permit them to inject.
Once the squads were on the move and he was assured the sealed door wasn’t about to open, McKinney pushed his way to the front of the group in order to lead. He’d always considered himself to have a fully-functioning sense of direction, but there was a brief moment when his brain did a mental fumble and he couldn’t recall the way they’d come. Then, everything clicked into place and he was able to visualise the return route to the entry point.
He led them away at a jog, looking for the set of steps downwards. It was by necessity a rapid pace and he was relieved that the four men carrying the Vraxar were able to keep up. The group reached the steps – from the top they appeared much steeper than they had on the way up and much more dangerous.
I’m in the middle of a Neutraliser filled with hostile aliens and I’m getting worried about stairs, he chided himself.
“Be careful,” he said.
Sometimes it was the mundane things which could be the most dangerous and as McKinney stepped downwards, he felt a weight hit him in the back. He stumbled, his left hand reaching out automatically for the railing which wasn’t there. As McKinney recovered, a soldier fell past him. His visor informed him it was Woodrow Hughes and the man’s fall was already out of control. McKinney whipped his hand out in a futile attempt to grab the soldier’s arm. It was too late and even if he’d been successful, it was likely they’d have both fallen.
“No!”
Hughes frantically attempted to run with the momentum by trying to get his feet onto the treads. It looked as if he’d pull off an astounding recovery, but then he tripped and went into a headlong roll. The others could only watch in dumbfounded silence as Hughes clattered away into the distance.
Amy Sandoval, the medic who’d been with Corporal Evans, attempted to get past McKinney. He took hold of her upper arm in a crushing grip.
“Don’t be stupid!” he shouted at her. “Let’s not make it two, eh?”
“But...”
“Wait, damnit!”
Sandoval nodded her agreement and kept pace with McKinney when he set off again.
“Hughes, please report.”
“There’re no life signs from his suit, sir.”
“I know. Hughes, please report.”
There was no response from the soldier and, in spite of his warnings, McKinney found himself descending fa
ster than was advisable. He held his gauss rifle in one hand and found it actually helped him with balance. With each new step, his anger grew. He had no idea why anyone – human or Vraxar – would think it a good idea to make steps so steep that it was necessary to turn sideways in order to traverse them.
The rest of the squad came with exaggerated care and they dropped rapidly behind. There was a continuous stream of expletives from those assigned to carry the Vraxar, particularly from Garcia. McKinney was in a foul mood and he set a mental note to have a quiet word with the man at a more appropriate moment.
Hughes had come to a halt more than halfway down. To McKinney’s untrained eye, he looked in one piece. Sandoval wasn’t so easily fooled.
“Dead,” she said.
McKinney kept a respectful distance while Sandoval balanced across two steps near to the body and pulled the probe out from her med-box. From this close range, he could see the cracks across Hughes’ visor. It took a significant force to make a scratch on the lenses, let alone shatter them.
The bottom wasn’t too far away and McKinney kept a watchful eye for movement. There’d only been light for part of the journey here and he couldn’t remember exactly when the darkness had ended. The steps were sufficiently illuminated that he didn’t require his image intensifiers or his movement sensors. He listened, trying to detect anything which might indicate the Vraxar were trying to head them off. The soldiers made some noise; other than that, there was nothing.
Sandoval removed the probe after less than five seconds. She pushed herself wearily to her feet – this was her first combat mission and she gave every indication that each death on her watch was going to leave a permanent imprint.
“Broken neck, skull and four smashed ribs. Somehow this feels worse than the shuttle crash. More personal,” she said in answer to McKinney’s unspoken question. “I hope it gets easier.”
“Pray that it doesn’t.”
God Ship (Obsidiar Fleet Book 3) Page 8
