Starship Paradiso (Helltroopers Book 3)

by Isaac Stone

  “Appears we’re going to have to do this manually,” Ash announced. “Alright, I trust everyone has had a good night’s sleep because we’ll have to find a way in via shuttle. Viktor, what kind of shuttle craft does this ship possess?”

  “We have a small assortment of craft capable of going from ship to ship and to the planet side,” the AI told them. “The Paradiso was not built for landing on planets, so it can use its shuttles for the job. I can find a side port to let you into the station and guide the shuttle from here.”

  “Excellent. I will need to prepare a story to the crew on the station as to who we are and why they should let us inside. How large is the crew over there?”

  “Fifty people, including all manner of support and freight operators. However, I wouldn’t worry about sending them a message.”

  “Why is that?”

  “They don’t respond to any transmissions I’ve sent out. I checked the logs down on Earth. It appears there has been no communication with it in the past two days. The groundside support people are in the process of sending up a shuttle of their own to investigate. But don’t worry; I can open the port from here. The groundsiders won’t be up here for another three days. This will give you plenty of time to investigate and find the beacon.”

  “Wonderful,” Ash observed. “Why do silent orbital stations seem to be the rule instead of the exception where ever we travel?”

  They spent the next few hours gathering up their gear and preparing to travel to the station. Haddo seemed relieved when Ash told him he wasn’t expected to come along.

  “This is a job for people who know how to shoot guns in space,” Ash told him.

  “I’ve never had the opportunity,” Haddo responded as he watched them get ready.

  In a few hours, they were inside one of the smaller shuttles used by the Paradiso. Ash choose one that barely held his crew, as he didn’t plan to be inside it very long. In addition, he had no intention of frightening whoever was still on the orbital station. An appearance of a starship had to be bad enough. Even the signals Viktor monitored from Earth were full of squawks about the huge ship. It appeared out of nowhere and was moored in orbit.

  Viktor brought it across from the Paradiso to the station without much trouble. The distance was significant, but the entire trip only took a half hour. They felt weightlessness the moment the shuttle fired its engines and left the orbit of the Paradiso, but the gravities kicked in when it adjusted and moved in the direction of the orbital station.

  “Everyone alright inside there?” Viktor asked Ash as they felt the small shuttle move into position. “All your vital signs appear in good health, but I always like to ask to make sure.”

  “We’re good,” Ash let him know. Everyone was suited up in body armor with an impact gun strapped to the rear of the acceleration chairs. It felt like old times.

  “Any contact with the staff inside it?” Ash questioned the AI. “I’d like to have some idea what to expect.”

  “They don’t respond,” Viktor replied over the earpiece. “I’ve let the surface command know why we’re here. Well, not the specific reason why we’ve arrived, but they understand. Everyone down there wants to know about the Paradiso, including the government who built it. Seems it was so classified they forgot about the project.”

  “Christ,” Costa swore, “don’t these people ever talk to each other? How do you forget about a ship big enough to take humanity to the stars?”

  “That’s probably the cover story,” Theo responded. “I’m guessing they know very well about it, but don’t want to admit anything.”

  By now, the orbital station filled the screen in front of them. They could see the marks from repairs and micrometeor impacts as the shuttle made its way around the station. Viktor located a docking port built years ago for smaller craft. It was one he could manipulate from the starship. In the situation they found themselves, it was the best thing for the AI to do.

  A few minutes later, they felt a familiar vibration through the shuttle as it locked onto the port. The entrance to it in the shuttle was below the crew area, but with the gravity now at the rear of the shuttle from the station’s spin, it was necessary to climb down the middle to reach it. Everyone waited for Viktor to give the clear sign before they unstrapped themselves, grabbed weapons, and left their chairs.

  “Did you have any problems docking the shuttle?” Ash questioned Viktor as he climbed down the aisle, which was now a ladder. “I need to know before we open the hatch door.”

  “Not a bit,” Viktor let him know. “It was almost too easy. Perhaps they want someone to come and take them home. Don’t know why they couldn’t use the radio or answer any of my signals.”

  “Everyone loaded and ready?” Ash asked his crew as he turned the handle on the hatch. There was a hissing sound as it equalized the pressure inside the shuttle.

  “All good,” Kris let him know. The rest signed off with her.

  Ash swung the door open and stepped inside the hatch. His impact gun was level and he looked around for any signs of hostility. Satisfied there was none, he signaled to the crew and they followed him inside. Everyone had their visor down and suits pressurized. They had no way of knowing what might be in the station atmosphere.

  The entrance point was quiet. It was a small airlock with the pressurization controls beyond the inner door. On the other side was a waiting room and console. This way an internal operator could allow a person to enter the station from whatever docked on the other side. It was empty and showed no signs of recent use.

  “Guess they don’t use this room much,” Makulah observed as he looked around. “I think this might be for emergency use only.”

  Ash unlocked the inner door to the station and stepped inside the corridor that led to the inside. So far, nothing odd. He heard the click as the door opened. Viktor had provided him with all the access codes needed to get to the beacon. His boots thudded on the floor of the steel walkway as Ash walked on it and looked both ways down the corridor. He could hear the ventilation system at work, but didn’t think much about it. The rest of the crew followed him into the interior of the orbital station.

  “Here we go again,” he heard Jack say.

  Ash turned and looked at the symbol painted on the wall.

  5

  It matched the ones they’d seen e in the wake of Haddo on Inferno Station and Fortress Purgatory. The ones he’d explained were placed to control the forces the corporation had unleashed from The Other Side. According to Haddo, these symbols, or “sigils” as he called them, were necessary to manipulate the creatures from the higher aethers that were allowed to operate inside this reality.

  “We’ve seen these before,” Theo mentioned. “And nothing good comes out of them.”

  “Keep you trigger finger ready,” Ash warned the rest of Team Omega as they travelled down the hall. “I don’t know what’s ahead, but that symbol worries me. Hey, Viktor, you’re listening and watching, why don’t you show that symbol to our friend Simon? See what he has to say.”

  “I already have,” came the voice from the AI in his earpiece. “He says it’s a bad one. It’s related to the Sigillum Inferno and channels the demons. So watch out ahead.”

  Ash grumbled and walked to the end of the corridor. According to the diagram, it terminated into another door, which led to a large break room. On the other side of the break room was supposed to be the life support systems where the beacon was positioned. All they had to do was cross the break room to destroy the beacon. It would finish this part of the mission.

  There was a small window in the door, but the light was too faint on the other side to see beyond it. Ash sighed and turned the handle that unlocked the door. So far, the penetration into the station took place without incident. Ash had a premonition this wasn’t about to hold up much longer.

  He opened the door and walked into the break room. It was difficult to see what was inside as the light was faint. The background indicators showed normal, no
strange radiation or microbes in the atmosphere. Ash walked around and looked at the place. Everything was as you might expect any rest area to be between shifts. There were half-eaten food containers on the table and reading material. Some old couches, which were new a decade ago, lined the walls. At the far end was the door to the life support area. It was marked with the usual warning sign, but nothing more.

  “Anyone see something I don’t?” Ash asked his crew. No one spotted anything out of the ordinary. Whatever had caused the crew not to respond wasn’t in this place. They couldn’t even find any more of the strange symbols painted on the walls.

  “Okay, Ash announced, “Let’s see if we can find that Hell Beacon in the life support chamber. It’s not a big room and everyone had a picture of what we’re trying to find sent to them.” He walked to the next door and pushed it open with little effort.

  The beacon they needed to find resembled a cube three feet in height, width and length. It had no blinking lights or even distinctive letters. But it was a deep blue in color and would appear to be out of place in the small room. Haddo expected it to be secured to a wall or disguised to resemble a useless bit of equipment. Even if anyone wanted to know the purpose of it, there would be a lot of difficulty in opening the cube. In most cases, a curious person would give up and move on to something else.

  The life support room was filled with air recycling equipment and atmosphere monitors. All the data on the quality of air was fed into data collection machines and sent to Earth for analysis. Most of the oxygen and recycler units lined the wall, but there was a small aisle they could walk down between them. Ash doubted the entire room occupied more than seven hundred square feet.

  “Look for the cube,” he told the crew. “We all know what it resembles. Let me know as soon as it’s found.” They walked down the aisle and peered between the devices lined up to the walls.”

  Ash planned to destroy it with a small explosive charge. This would not damage the integrity of the room. Ash wasn’t about to shoot it with his impact gun. He didn’t want to risk a shell missing, even at close range, and blowing a hole to the vacuum of space. No matter how deep they were inside the station, the hardened shells fired by the impact guns could travel through several layers of steel with ease. If all else failed, Team Omega had the flame swords in their scabbards. Each flame sword consisted of a core of iridium attached to a scabbard. The core, when activated, would heat to incredible temperatures and would burn through almost anything.

  “Found it!” Makulah announced from the far end of the aisle. Ash walked down to see what he’d discovered.

  There it was, wedged between two air-recycling units. A black cube that matched the dimensions they were given. It even resembled the picture Haddo gave them. Ash looked at it and sent the image back to Viktor.

  “Is this it?” he asked the AI.

  “Matches the specifications,” Viktor returned back. “And something is transmitting from your side of the station. You can safely eliminate it. That way we’ll know for sure.”

  “I’ve got the charge ready,” Makulah told Ash. “You want me to do the honors?” He held up a small bomblet.

  “Might as well,” Ash told him. “We’ll stand by and make sure it stops transmitting.” He watched Makulah stroll over to the black cube and slap the charge on it.

  “Okay,” he said, “bomb in place. I’ll stand back and….”

  Before he could finish, a man in a work coverall, with half of his face having been turned into a gory mess, lunged from behind the cube and stabbed Makulah through his faceplate and into the left eye. Before Makulah could respond, he’d fallen to the floor, clutching at his helm.

  The man, if it was still possible to use the term, turned around and lunged at Ash. But Ash had his impact gun leveled. The moment Makulah went down, it was trained on the thing that had stabbed Makulah. Ash fired directly at him, after he’d taken the time to set the charge on the shell to short range. The shell exploded the moment it hit the target and scattered the pieces of the man across the room.

  Still clutching the helm, Makulah activated his flame sword and cut the black cube in two sections. It only took one swath and the cube sent sparks across the room from where it happened. He was still able to turn off the sword the moment the cube was sliced open.

  “Signal stopped,” Viktor told him. “Whatever happened over there, it worked.” Ash wasn’t listening; as he was too busy pulling Makulah from the floor.

  Makulah’s vital signs went red and his arm was limp. There still might be time to save him if he was returned to the Paradiso fast enough. Ash took Makulah’s flame sword and placed it back in his scabbard.

  “We need to get out of here!” Ash yelled to the team. “Makulah’s been stabbed. He has to get back to the starship. “Move it!”

  They ran back into the break room to find it filled with mutilated corpses in work uniforms, worse was the fact that they were all standing up and shuffling towards Team Omega. Each one had the same wall symbol carved into it. Someone who knew how to invoke the Enochian demons was very busy. But all Ash could think of was a way to get Makulah back. There wasn’t much room to for any kind of fight.

  “Jesus Christ!” Jack yelled. “Where did this bunch come from?” He froze at the mob that was between them and the door to the corridor.

  The animated corpses swayed a bit, but they were outnumbered. Ash couldn’t figure out how these things were made. Many of them were in an advanced state of decomposition. A few had missing arms and the one nearest to him only had part of its face. Some of them appeared to have been gnawed on as they had teeth marks ripped into their flesh. Right now, all Ash could think about was their safe return to the ship.

  Haddo was right when he warned them about that symbol.

  If these creatures were human once, they still had human weaknesses. But Ash didn’t want to use the impact guns on the things. The guns would blow them apart, but the explosions might damage the break room to the point where they couldn’t escape. If too many shells detonated near the exit door, they’d never be able to leave. The doors were built to seal if there were any explosions nearby so as to prevent rapid depressurization of the station. There was only one way to fight back and make it return to the shuttle.

  “Activate the flame swords!” he yelled over his helm radio to Team Omega. Instantly, the swords were pulled from the scabbards and switched on to full power. They glowed in the hands of everyone who wielded them.

  Ash still held onto the form of Makulah, but he wasn’t about to stop what he needed to do. He carefully put the unconscious man to the floor.

  “Go for the heads!” Ash yelled. The animated corpses were moving forward. Team Omega needed to get through them to reach the door. The white-hot rods of each sword rose in the air.

  “Charge!” Ash yelled and ran with his crew at the creatures.

  In minutes, the things were cut to pieces as the flame swords burnt through them. Body parts were thrown across the break room as it turned into a sizzling slaughterhouse. As Ash suspected, once the head was separated from the torso, the creatures ceased to be a threat. Ash cut down four of them in seconds and saw Kris slice another three in half as she went through their ranks with her flame sword. They continued to slice until the door to the corridor was clear.

  Ash stopped long enough to cut in half one advancing creature at the waistline. He then turned to see what the rest of Team Omega accomplished. Not one of the animated corpses stood upright. The air, if he could have smelled it, was ripe with the scent of burnt flesh. But the rest of his crew was unscathed. Their suit armor and training saved them.

  “Everyone okay?” Ash transmitted. He did a quick check to make sure they were all in place and opened the door to the corridor. He ran back and picked up Makulah. They made their way down the corridor and went directly to the shuttle.

  “Haddo says that the seer stone he uses warned him about the animated corpses,” Viktor transmitted to them as they made their way b
ack to the Paradiso on the shuttle. “I understand you lost Makulah.”

  “Tell Haddo it would’ve been nice had he warned me before we walked into the mess,” Ash sent back to the ship. “And have a freeze chamber ready for internment. We might be able to save Makulah if we get him cooled down fast enough and keep him that way until he reaches a hospital.”

  Freeze chambers were suspended animation units developed during the Colony Wars to transport wounded soldiers out of the battlefield. They slowed the body processes down to the point where it was difficult to tell if the person was still alive. However, it was still possible to perform surgery and save lives while a person was in this state. Later, they could be brought out. Survival depended on how damaged a person was before they went into the chamber.

  Mars was the next destination for Team Omega. Viktor had the coordinates ready by the time they brought everyone back on board the Paradiso. This time Haddo was consulted before the jump. He was able to make preparations before the jump drive was activated, something about shielding them from the eyes of the entities that resided in the sideways realm through which the jump drive took them.

  A robotic gurney took Makulah’s form away the moment they reentered the starship. Ash delayed the jump long enough to make sure his pilot was fully chilled down before they made the transition to the area around Mars. From what the automatic doctor told him, Makulah could be saved provided they took him to a hospital within three days of his regeneration. The freeze chamber could keep him down for years before it needed to be recharged. The knife blade missed any major centers of his brain and the damage could be repaired.

  The rest of the crew sat in the control room when Ash entered. He was tired and beat from the sudden trip to and from the orbital station. Haddo stood next to the table. It occurred to Ash that he’d yet to see the man sit down.