by Brett Bam
Then there was the boy’s bio-electric signature. It was off the scale, showing a far
higher activity pattern than anything she’d seen before. His brain scanned strangely too, far too much activity over every sector, including some that shouldn’t be active at all. He crackled with a static charge.
“Who are you?” She somehow managed to lift her head against the pressing force, obeying an almost primal need to look at the boy. He seemed ordinary.
Suddenly the display beeped an alarm. His respiration had increased, his heartbeat had quickened and a small surge of adrenaline kicked into his body. It all registered on the display. He was conscious! How did that happen? The poor thing would be terrified.
“Kulen, can you hear me?”
The boy sat bolt upright in his chair, fear wild in his eyes. He put his arm on the armrest of the couch as if he didn't weigh many times his normal weight and turned to look at Curtis.
“Don’t move!” she urged him, “you’ll hurt yourself!” His eyes shone like a rainbow, light skittered off his eyes like a reflection.
“They're coming.” he said ominously.
Kulen shifted forward in his seat and slid off the couch. The heavy gravity pressed his legs into the edge of it. He caught the skin on the back of his legs against the steel rim and pushed himself onto the floor, even as it scraped a long strip of skin from the back of each leg. His face didn’t even register the pain it must have caused. Curtis stared, helpless, as the boy dropped to his feet and started making his way across the deck towards the bank of storage units against the wall. The gravity pushed relentlessly, and as he fought his way through it he damaged himself. His first step strained his left ankle visibly, the second step dislocated his right knee. The third step broke his left femur. Kulen looked down at the nasty break with confusion and irritation etched into his face. He took another step. Curtis could hear the pop as the ligaments in his foot and leg gave way.
“Kulen! Stop!”
The boy turned and looked at her. Curtis was horrified and nauseated. Her retina display showed Kulen was feeling great pain, but the small boy was ignoring it and pushing on anyway, like a machine that couldn’t halt its task in spite of its malfunction.
“They’re coming. We have to hide.”
Curtis remembered the last such warning Kulen had given, a chill went through her making the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and her skin flush with goose bumps. She toggled her comm link.
“Skipper, Kulen is out of his couch. Emergency stop.”
“What?” On the RHS Dalys slapped the emergency stall, cutting thrust and plunging the ship into freefall. In the med bay Kulen started to flop around weightless, his legs twisted horribly underneath him. Curtis snapped off her harness and pushed herself towards him.
“What’s going on Doc?”
“It’s Kulen, he’s awake and up, he climbed out of his couch. He’s hurt himself. Dalys, he thinks we have company again. I know it sounds paranoid, but could we check?”
On the RHS, Dalys turned to Oscar.
“Kid, do a sensor scan, I want to know if we've got anything creeping up our tails. Moabi, activate all torpedo clusters and the scanning lasers on the array. If you have the time, get the projectiles online too. You never know.”
“What are you expecting Skipper?”
“Nothing to be honest, but then I have a bad feeling. I’d like to have the guns up just in case we’re being chased. They really did seem most eager to have him back.”
“You think they're going to get so close we can shoot at them?”
“I don't know what to expect Oscar, get busy with that scan. Berea...” she never finished that order.
“Oh shit! They're right on top of us! Three kilometres and closing! They've already matched trajectories.”
Dalys realised with a sudden cold flash that they were going to be boarded. It was the only reasonable explanation for why the other ship was so close. If they had wanted to fight they would shoot from afar. Instead, they had slipped by her proximity alerts without sounding a single alarm, which shouldn’t have been possible. Her options were suddenly very limited. She could swing the dissipater fans in an attempt to fry the asshole, but the feedback radiation would harm them too. As a matter of fact, any deviations in flight path now were just ludicrous; their velocity was huge, the inertia could shred both ships.
“All crew, all crew, code red! Prepare to repel boarders.”
They gave her an incredulous stare as if they could not believe what they had just heard.
“Now people! Move it!”
Moabi, Jack Mac and Berea unlocked their couches and pulled themselves out. They were in freefall and weightless. Moabi opened the weapons locker on the RHS as Dalys squirted the release code at the safe. He hauled out weapons, handing out small-spray lasers, a handheld laser that fired a wide hot beam in a cone of red light in one-second pulses. It would cook anything biological and hopefully short circuit or melt anything electronic. He also gave them each a short-burst automatic pistol with ninety-eight compressed explosive rounds in the discharge chamber. Berea and Oscar shared a fear-filled moment. They were the only two on board not trained and experienced in combat situations. For a split second Dalys considered them. Oscar was physically weak and slow. He definitely did not have a killer’s instinct. Berea had a flash of bravado in her eyes and Dalys knew she was willing to fight if needed. She was the better of the two, although still so young and inexperienced. Still, Dalys would have to use her, they were all in mortal danger. “Berea get up, Oscar stay here and lock the door.”
Moabi dropped a weapons bundle in Oscar’s lap and then handed one to Dalys. Oscar looked and saw that he had been given the spray laser and a machine pistol. He strapped on the belt and stuck the laser between the cushions of his couch.
Dalys strapped her personal holster and handgun to her waist. It was a Rim Division Naval Captain’s weapon, one of the most diverse handguns ever designed. It held three 300 compressed rounds in a chamber that slid down the centre of the grip. It could discharge solid projectiles at a rate of four per second with zero recoil. The weapons operating system was keyed to Dalys’ data glasses and she could control the gun’s functions by blinking her eyes. Each round was equipped with a small homing device that would target whatever she was looking at when she fired. She also strapped a short, wicked, curved steel blade into a wrist sheath that she hid beneath her sleeve, just in case things got personal.
Moabi grinned maniacally as he slid a wickedly curved blade into a sheath on his belt. They swung, tumbled and swam out of the dilated RHS portal into the superstructure corridor.
“Where are we going?” yelled Berea from the back.
“They're after the boy, aren't they? Chances are they'll try and breach the superstructure somewhere near the med bay.”
“Oh my gods! A breach? Should we prep for vacuum?” Fear tightened her voice.
“No time,” said Jack Mac. “this bucket of bolts holds plenty of air. It'll take fifteen minutes to vent to a point where we'll be in trouble if they breach in one place only. It'll all be over by then.”
“What if they breach in two places, or three?”
“Well then we'll be deeper in the shit than we already are. There's only one hostile though, chances are they can only breach once.”
As he finished saying this Oscars voice came over the comm system.
“Brace for impact.” He sounded almost hysterical.
The hull rang with an ominous bang and the crew had just enough time to grasp a rail to prevent being thrown against a bulkhead. A gush of smoke ran down the length of the corridor and a flickering orange glow shone behind it as the boarders cut through the bulkhead with lasers.
“Hull breach, med section,” said Dalys. Her voice was soft and calm, almost conversational.
A sudden concussion ran the length of the corridor and a nightmare spilled into the Ribbontail.
The Protocol’s retrieval unit had 7
5 articulated extensions, each tipped with a sensor set and grapplers. It pushed these in sections into the violated spaceship’s innards, slipping as many into the hole as it could.
Dalys saw what looked like a pile of metallic, slithering snakes, each as thick as her leg, pour through the rent in the ceiling and rush towards the med bay portal. They had a variety of tools in the place their heads would be. They reared in front of the door and played scanning lasers over the surface, probing. Then their sensor sets spun, whirred and changed, exposing circular saws and the hot spears of cutting torches. They started cutting into the bulkhead, attempting to gain access to the portal’s control panel. The rear section of the tangle of snakes which extended into the corridor slithered over the surfaces they met, exploring and groping. Several of the mechanical creatures raised their heads and looked straight at the small group of people crowded at the far end of the corridor. There was nowhere to hide. Dalys tapped her belt buckle and her field whined into life, the grey fog spreading out in front of her. The metal things swept towards them, slithering horribly.
Moabi was the first to intercept. He fired both guns and one of the snakes was shattered, retracting quickly. Dalys and Jack Mac reacted next another two snakes were destroyed. Dalys took hers out with a single well-placed shot, while Jack Mac sprayed his with several rounds. They were all well versed in this type of fighting and had their feet braced in brackets on the corridor walls to prevent the recoil from spinning them in the zero gravity. Their bullets tore into the snakes and the damaged tentacles disappeared back into the hole at high speed. Suddenly the vast bulk of metallic horrors reared and rushed towards them. They focused on Dalys, identifying her field as a threat. She was hammered to the deck under their onslaught, safe behind her dark protection. Moabi dived forward, meeting the charge, but he was forced to dodge as the slithering metallic bulk reached him. He slammed into a recess in the corridor wall, firing both handguns into the monstrosities plunging by. Several of them stopped and rushed him, but he kept them at bay with a continuous string of fire from both guns that slammed in his ears and scorched his eyes. For every one he destroyed, two slipped in to replace it. As Moabi twisted away, Jack Mac and Berea, lacking the enhanced reflexes of their crewmate, were caught blind by the rush of metallic monsters.
Jack Mac was quickly overwhelmed, one of the monstrosities grabbed him painfully by the chest, its grapplers wrapping around his torso, the strength of its grip forcing the air from his lungs. It hauled him, screaming, down the corridor. He was almost pulled through the breach into the invader, but lifted the short-burst gun in his right hand, jammed it deep into the sensor set of the steel thing and pulled the trigger. He held it hard against the sensors as the bullets hammered it. The entire beast began to convulse as the rapid fire tore it messily in two. Jack Mac convulsed and lost consciousness as an electrical charge flashed through him. The snake fell to the deck, dropping him as it withdrew along the floor.
Berea watched in horror as Jack Mac was grabbed viciously and pulled away into smoke. She lifted her handgun and shot wildly. Sparks and ricochets threatened everyone for a moment. One shot was lucky and it struck the nearest snake’s sensor set, damaging it, forcing it back, only to have another replace it immediately. A third snake swept towards her and she fired again, slowing it down enough to dive out of its way. It began to thrash wildly in the tunnel and caught her a blow on the hip which sent her flying into the bulkhead. She rotated in mid air, stunned, and a fourth snake reared to strike her.
At the last possible moment, Dalys shot it, her bullets hammering it sideways with unerring accuracy and destroying the other three sliding in behind it. She was causing devastation in the small space, every shot claiming a victim. She took out the one hovering over Jack Mac and gave Moabi a chance to get up. She had destroyed more of the machines than all of the rest put together, but there were still more of them pouring through the rent. There was a shower of sparks as the machines continued their attack on the med bay door. It wouldn’t take them long to get through.
Moabi grabbed Jack Mac and dragged him back down the corridor under covering fire from Berea and Dalys. Berea stopped shooting as Moabi reached her. She looked down at Jack Mac. “Is he okay?”
The lapse in concentration was fatal. A snake thrust through the smoke and slammed into her. Its sensor set clasped tight, cutting her horribly. Blood sprayed and flowed. It lifted her from her feet and dragged her away. Moabi watched as she was pulled from the ship. Dalys was screaming in rage and horror.
Inside the med bay, Curtis grabbed Kulen and ducked behind the counter as the portal glowed red then white hot. It started to melt and flow like liquid. A hole grew wider and then the door was open. Six of the most terrible machines she had ever seen came slithering through the door, black and oily and all sharp edges. The noise and chaos outside was far removed from the ordinary interior of the ship and it shocked her to see the destruction. She wailed with fear as the snakes came prowling slowly into the room. At the small sound the machines reared up and swept around the counter to regard them. Kulen was plucked from her grasp, and then she was pulled painfully from her hiding place despite her most desperate attempts to hold fast. The steel that grabbed her was sharp and cold.
Kulen screamed and there was nothing she could do. The horrible thing had her in a grasp so crushingly strong it confounded belief. She could not breathe and she could not pull the steel from her. The pain was intense. As the machines pulled them to the door Curtis caught a glimpse of Berea’s writhing form go flying past, through the breach, into the darkness. She realised with a sudden chill that she was about to die. As this thought became a certainty the grapplers let go. Blood rushed back into her constricted chest as she was released. She heard the crack of shots in the corridor. She bounced from the deck and drifted in the zero gravity, fighting for breath, trying to move through the pain. Kulen drifted loosely next to her. He was twisted and broken. For a small second Curtis didn’t know how to help him.
Dalys kept firing steadily at the machines intruding into the med bay. She severed some of them and damaged the rest enough to force them back. A reload on her pistols was becoming more necessary. Beside her Moabi was grappling with a snake, hand to steel. It savaged his hands as he tore it in two and threw its sensor set down the corridor. It tumbled into the mess of blood, oil and smoke. Several severed sensor sets tumbled through the space, smoking and oozing. Out of the chaos, a darting tentacle reached Moabi and grabbed him. Dalys cut it in half with four quick shots, Moabi still clutched in the smoking dead claw. She pushed past him, concentrating her fire, pushing through the portal to the med bay with her superior handgun. She couldn't see Berea. Every snake she could see rushed her as she rushed them. She fired both guns as she flew, the recoil altering her trajectory. As the corridor spun around her she tagged the bulkhead, kicking off powerfully in a direction that fooled them. She had ten shots left, time to start sniping rather than spraying. Steel shattered and punctured, oil sprayed and mixed with blood. Dalys was hit hard and pushed against the bulkhead, her breath gone, saved by her field. She let two more shots go, pinned under sharp steel. Another second or two of ammo was all she had left. There were too many of them. She was about to lose this battle.
“Oscar! Deactivate the helix! Now!”
“What? But that'll...”
The snakes loomed over her, thrashing and striking blindly in the smoke and flames.
“NOW!”
“Aye Skipper.”
Oscar deactivated the acceleration helix channelling the energy from the Tokomak reactor to the dissipater fans. The Protocol invader was clamped to the superstructure directly over two of the main conduits of the Tokomak’s helix. The resultant magnetic surge discharged like a bolt of lightning. It was shoved away from the hull, leaving a gaping wound of venting air bleeding from the Ribbontail. The snakes extruding from the enemy dangled limply in the vacuum.
The deactivation stalled the acceleration helix, Oscar was forc
ed to restart it, praying the conduit’s integrity would hold. It did, and the ship thrummed back into life. The emergency breach protocols, free of the impediment of the Protocol ship began to fill the hole in the Ribbontail with foam that quickly hardened and halted the escaping airflow. It left a nasty, bulbous blister on the skin of the ship and nearly filled the interior of the corridor. Jack Mac’s feet were encased in the foam and Dalys saw Moabi struggling to free him as she moved for the med bay.
One quick glance into the room saw Curtis strapping Kulen to an examination table. Her eye was blue and glowing as she scanned him. The room was a mess. Glass, plastic, liquid and smoke tainted the air.
“I need some supplies. That black bag there should do.” said Curtis. Dalys jumped across the room, grabbing the bag drifting near the floor. She changed direction and jumped toward the table, catching its edge to stabilise herself. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s mostly superficial. He’s my immediate concern.”
“Jack Mac is down but Moabi is helping him. They’ll be in here in a second. I have to go.”
“Berea?”
Dalys shook her head. Curtis nodded without taking her eyes off Kulen and started reaching into the bag for something to stop the bleeding. Dalys was out of the med bay and moving up the corridor for the RHS in two quick bounds. She accelerated up the corridor by reaching for handholds. She went straight past Moabi and Jack Mac with barely a look.
