“You’re certain of that?”
“The station was attacked. Everyone but you is unaccounted for. They took your weapons.”
Bel-Ures was silent. He watched her face, her controlled expression. Her eyes twitched as she considered his words.
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
“And the weapons too?”
“Every last one of them.”
“What about Site Bravo?”
“Site Bravo?”
“You don’t know.” She fell silent again.
They were back at the building core, and Eilentes signalled that the staircase was still clear. They began to ascend.
“What’s Site Bravo?” Caden asked.
“Those weapons you mentioned,” said Bel-Ures. “They’re one half of the system.”
“And the other half is elsewhere?”
“Yes. As far from Herros as we could make it.”
“Where is it?”
“I need to speak to Command.”
Try as he might, she ignored all further questions. By the time they reached the top floor he had given up.
Throam moved ahead of them again as they left the atrium behind and headed for the corridor to the roof pad access. Eilentes dropped back, and the two officers flanked Caden and Bel-Ures, slightly ahead.
They reached the external door, passed through it, and headed into the roof tunnel.
Caden looked at Bel-Ures. “As soon as we get back to the Disputer—“
His words were cut off by an explosion ahead of them, and Throam was thrown back into the mouth of the tunnel. The counterpart slid along the floor on his back, then rolled onto his knees and clambered back to his feet.
“Fall back!” Eilentes shouted.
Caden pulled Bel-Ures away before she had time to react, grabbing her wrist and tugging until she followed him back down the tunnel. He heard a shot behind him, and looked over his shoulder to see one of the Eyes and Ears officers land dead on the floor.
“Eilentes, take her,” he said, and propelled Bel-Ures towards the pilot.
He turned back, hugging the wall of the tunnel, and pulled his rifle from its mag-tag.
Throam was back inside, also against the wall, sweeping the mouth of the tunnel and the landing pad beyond, peering down the sights of his rifle.
Smoke billowed from the wreckage of their shuttle’s hull. So much for ‘borrow’.
“Throam,” Caden shouted. “We’ll go another way.”
“Hold up,” said Throam.
“No. We go now. Stop trying to be the hero.”
Throam started to step backwards, slowly at first, then turned and jogged towards Caden.
More shots followed, semi-automatic this time. Caden lingered long enough to see a dim figure stepping though the smoke and haze, a rifle aimed right at them.
“Let’s get out of here.”
They ran back along the tunnel, through the door, following Eilentes, Bel-Ures and the remaining officer. Caden stopped just inside the doorway, his hand moving up to slap the control panel.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
Throam followed his gaze, back the way they had come, and saw the shooter approaching the mouth of the tunnel cautiously.
“Is that—?”
“Maber fucking Castigon,” said Caden. “Of all the times he could have picked.”
Throam hurled himself forwards the instant he saw Caden start to move.
— 18 —
Compromised
Bruiser was not alone in the gym compartment on Disputer, but he might as well have been.
With his link laying unused in his kit bag, the voices of the human crew down near the cardio machines were nothing but alien jibber-jabber; nonsense background noise drifting through the air. At any other time, his link would be constantly and indiscriminately translating the human speech it picked up. When he was training, however, Bruiser preferred not to listen. Human ideas were as numerous as human feelings, if not more-so, and both could become tiring. After a while any sensible Rodori needed a break. In any case, heavy lifting required proper concentration.
The best thing about the Disputer, he had rapidly discovered, was its gym. The heavy carrier must have played host to body-building enthusiasts frequently, because someone had taken the time to change the standard gym layout, emphasising the equipment that serious lifters would want to use, and putting some real experience and thought into the setting. Whoever had done it — whether it was an individual or a like-minded group of crew members — they had actually cared that their gym should truly serve their needs.
Much of the kit laying around had clearly been brought in after the facility was installed; crew had added bits and pieces to the various collections themselves, also cobbling together safety measures wherever the integrated systems could not accommodate unplanned additions.
At the foot of the deck-to-overhead mirrors running along one bulkhead, a steel safety cable snaked through the handles of a motley crew of kettlebells; red, black, blue and silver, some with the owners’ service numbers stencilled on them, others without, all of them in order of mass, all secured by the tether that would prevent them from becoming unpredictable missiles in the event of an unexpected gravity failure.
Bruiser’s greatest discovery though had been a heavy pressing bench — rated to support over fifteen hundred kilos — and the adjacent magnetic rack stocked with proper plates. They were real iron, of up to one hundred kilos each.
Real iron! For once, the weights were so dense he could physically fit enough of them on the bar to meet his goals. For the first time in a long time, he not only had plates which would let him hit his maximums, but a bench that could support both his body and the loaded bar without being crushed flat between their combined mass and the pull of the deck’s gravity plating.
He guessed correctly that Disputer regularly carried members of Tanker Regiment to their assignments. Thanks, Tankers.
He was peripherally aware, as he started his first set on the bench press, that he was being watched from across the deck. The jibber-jabbering had ceased. He ignored the Disputer crew members, and concentrated on his form instead. Humans, it seemed, were not often treated to the spectacle of someone pressing so very many kilos, and Bruiser was well-accustomed to being stared at in their gyms.
After his first set he placed the bar carefully back on the stands and leaned over to his bag. Pulling out a huge towel, he rolled it tightly and placed it across the bench. How these people could stand to press upwards while laying with their backs completely flat was quite beyond him.
Human skeletal structure made no sense to him, no sense at all.
• • •
Captain Thande allowed herself the luxury of a cup of tea. Normally she would not take hot drinks to her station, but this was a rare moment of peace. She expected nothing more than to await Caden’s return, then to leave the system with dignity and decorum.
The command deck thrummed with the gentle rhythm of power couplings and air circulation. As usual, her crew were professionally quiet, just the way she liked it.
Meccrace Prime rotated lazily at the port-side edge of the forward view port, with the large bright point that was Duraang trailing after it to the starboard-side, millions of kilometres farther out. The nearer planet must have lapped the outer one a matter of a few days ago. She knew from the helm display that Nathal was on the other side of the star right now, but even with just the two planets in view, and the star field beyond, the scene was spell-binding. Far, far too magically tranquil to be allowed to last.
Tactical shattered the serenity.
“Captain, I’m detecting a number of wormholes opening throughout the system. They’re concentrated around Meccrace Prime.”
“Is the gate active?”
“Negative Ma’am.”
“Close blast barriers. Sound general quarters, and signal all commands to do likewise.”
“We have incoming ships,�
�� said COMOP. “Oh…”
“What is it?”
“Ma’am, they’re… it’s…”
Thande gave up waiting for her Communications and Operations officer to describe his readings, and craned her neck to look for herself.
“Oh my fucking worlds,” she gasped.
One by one the rest of her command crew looked across, shocked by their captain’s uncharacteristic outburst, and they each caught sight of the dreadful holo. Open mouths released gasps of disbelief, were covered by hands, were nonetheless betrayed by the whites of wide eyes.
The field of view of the sensor feed displayed on the holo was far too small to convey the full scale of the arrival, and yet still it awed and shook them all.
“Unknown vessels are adopting aggressive stances, Ma’am. No IFF signals as yet.”
“Defensive posture,” Thande said. “Back us off, maximum thrust. Do not — I repeat, do not — open fire. Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”
COMOP worked at the main battle map for a few seconds, trying to wrangle the holo into doing what he asked of it. Eventually it was convinced to pull back to a wide view combining the feeds from all forward sensor palettes, without losing the scaled-down intruders from the scene.
“This can’t be happening,” Thande said.
But the battle map did not lie. Across the wake of Meccrace Prime, wormholes punctured the emptiness of space. Ship after vast ship emerged, thundering silently through the dark; monstrous and predatory.
“How many?”
Tactical had turned pale. “I’m reading seven so far, Captain. But they keep coming.”
“Assessment?”
“I don’t like to guess,” she said. “Just one of those things looks as though it’d be a match for everything we have in the system.”
“I had a horrible feeling you were going to say that.”
“Ten.”
“COMOP. Just on the off chance they aren’t looking in that direction, alert Meccrace Defence Control.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Twelve.”
“Tactical, you had better not be counting ships still.”
“Afraid so, Captain. Sixteen. Holding at sixteen. Wormholes appear to be attenuating, not closing fully.”
“So they want a live feed between them and wherever they came from.”
“That would be my bet,” COMOP said.
“Santani’s dreadships,” Thande said, as much to herself as to anyone else. “They have to be.”
“Running pre-emptive e-warfare countermeasures,” said Tactical.
“Good. Prime our hard defences too. And get talking to our other commands. Coordinate a threat assessment, and work up a projection for defence of the planet.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Captain,” COMOP said. “I’m… I’m seeing a number of unexpected system events across the ship.”
“Explain.”
“I can’t. None of this makes sense. Oh! No, no, no! Bay six was just vented.”
“Lock it down!” Thande snapped.
“I’m not seeing any intrusions in the comm systems,” Tactical said. “This isn’t interference from the outside.”
“No, these are manual events.”
“What in the Deep?” Thande shouted. “You’re telling me someone on this ship just blew out a flight deck?”
The lights flickered.
“Ma’am, these events are coming from different locations across the ship.”
“I’ve just lost main engines, and the reaction control system,” said Helm. She pressed and swiped different areas of her holo experimentally, to no effect. “We’re drifting.”
“Internal security is compromised: cameras are down, and the firearm inhibitor system just switched off. I’m going to try rebooting it.”
Thande nodded her acknowledgement at Tactical, and turned her attention back to COMOP. “Get me a location for every control interface accessed in the last few minutes, and…”
She trailed off with the dawning realisation that the gravity systems had failed.
As one, most of the crew on the command deck strapped themselves in to their stations, some having to pull themselves back down onto the seats from which their own small movements had launched them. Thande pulled her chair’s restraints across herself, and snapped the buckles closed.
“Captain!”
Thande looked towards the shout to see COMOP sailing towards her through the air. No, not towards her; he would pass in front of her face. She followed his gaze, turned to her right, saw blood gurgling out of a deck officer’s throat and crawling across his neck, face, and tunic, some of it bubbling off into the air. A ceramic blade, pointed straight at her, pierced the air on its way towards her own throat, a red hand and arm propelling it, and beyond that a face that was a rictus of intention purified, with no human spirit behind it whatsoever.
She saw this all in a split second; a slice of time that seemed to last forever, frosty and brittle and distant.
And then Thande’s COMOP officer smashed bodily into the XO, and his momentum overcame that of the would-be assassin. They drifted back to the bulkhead, blood now crawling along his arm where the blade had glanced off him, and he grabbed at Yuellen’s wrist. The XO seemed to take several seconds to realise that the situation had changed, his gaze had been locked on Thande with such grim determination. Yuellen writhed, but COMOP’s grip was firm.
Thande was swamped by a sudden wave of wider awareness, and saw others coming to help, hitting the releases on their buckles and pushing themselves off from their seats to float towards the struggle.
“Tactical,” she said, her voice wobbly. “Seal the command deck. Alert all security stations: we have a mutiny underway.”
• • •
For a moment, Bruiser was too preoccupied to notice the change in the ship’s condition. But when he brought the bar back down, and the stands took over from his arm muscles, he felt his back lift away from the bench. His feet left the floor at the same time, and he cursed loudly. No gravity meant no realistic prospect of continuing his gym session.
He rolled onto his side, and flicked the safety latches over the barbell while he waited for the gravity to resume. Allowing the bar to leave the stands under its own recognizance would be a seriously bad idea.
While he wiped himself down, he was aware that some human gibberish was being broadcast over the ship’s comm system. Whatever it was it could wait. Chances were it was just some human pointing out the obvious gravity failure for the benefit of all the other humans.
The towel stayed by his side when he released it.
He found he was thirsty, and decided he might as well use the wait to refresh himself. He stood carefully, and began to propel his body along the deck in the crouching, sweeping way he had learned early on in his military career.
The lights flickered, then went out row by row. He cursed again, dragging to a stop, and waited for the emergency illumination strips to show the way.
The faint blue lights came on after what felt like an eternity, and he started moving again, then immediately stopped once more.
There was movement in the gloom ahead of him.
He had been fairly sure that the other gym users had given up and left while he was still working — even those who were trying obviously and tragically to compete with him — and he had not noticed anyone else coming in. But then he had been concentrating on his workout to the exclusion of all else.
It did not surprise him at all that someone else might have come to start their own session, but there was something not quite right here.
Three figures now stood motionless in the dim light. Still. Silent.
One of the silhouettes moved again, and Bruiser realised with a shocking jolt that the figure was raising a rifle, aiming straight for him. The compartment echoed the plastic-sounding twuck of the weapon’s refusal to fire aboard ship.
He was moving sideways before anything else could happen.
But then they weren’t talking.
The observation popped into his mind, and jostled for position with all the other odd questions that the situation threw up.
The first figure reached him, and in the faint glow of the emergency lighting he saw it was a Disputer crewman. Without a word, the man launched himself through the air, hands contorted like bony claws, and Bruiser swung his own fist as hard as he could. The blow connected with the man’s shoulder, and he sailed out to the side, Bruiser’s unstoppable force throwing him into the air.
Bruiser floated backwards slightly, the momentum exchange of the impact pushing even his huge bulk away from the collision, and his bare feet scraped across the flooring.
The man had landed awkwardly across a bench, taking the looser part of it down with him, but he was already trying to right himself, untangling his body from the equipment.
Another was coming in from the side, this one also a man. Bruiser saw the glint of a blade in one hand.
Bruiser picked up a fifty-kilo plate, swung his arm back, and hurled it as hard as he could, pushing down through his legs and feet. He floated to the overhead, and pushed off again to return to the deck.
The iron disc sliced through the air, smashing against the man’s head with a wet thud. He flipped backwards, his feet lifting off the floor, and tumbled away. He hit the deck and bounced off, floating slowly towards the overhead. Bruiser had no doubt that he was dead.
The first attacker was now on his feet again, perched like some kind of feral creature atop the bench he had fallen across. He began to tense up, and Bruiser anticipated him this time. The Rodori picked up a loaded barbell, left on the stands by someone too lazy to put their weights away, and swung it with perfect timing.
The man had thrown himself through the air again, hurtling towards Bruiser with goodness knew what in mind. The end of the barbell — and the forty kilos of metal plate that went with it — crunched into his ribcage.
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 55
