Sean Dalton - Operation StarHawks 03 - Beyond the Void

by Sean Dalton - [Operation StarHawks 03]

  Silence fell over the shuttle. Finally Caesar stirred.

  “Yep,” he said. “Looks like we’re short on options. Get your rear in gear, Siggie boy. Let’s start hunting ourselves some Invaders.”

  The shuttle limped along. Serula removed her space suit and stored it in silence. No one spoke to her, and she seated herself out of the way. Beaulieu moaned and began to come around. She didn’t seem to be hurt other than a bump on the head. 41 rummaged through her kit and sealed up the cut on Kelly’s temple. With the blood cleaned off his face and a painkiller damping his headache, Kelly’s optimism returned. He figured the Invaders were stealing ships and prisoners in order to learn more about this galaxy before they came through in force. That gave the others a good chance of still being alive.

  “41,” he said. “Anything else that you can tell us about these Invaders?”

  “We don’t know they’re the same as 41’s legend,” said Beaulieu, grimacing as she chewed a tdblet.

  “I think they are the same,” said 41.

  “How—”

  But Kelly held up his hand to silence her. He had learned to respect 41’s opinions. The ex-mercenary spoke only when he knew what he was talking about. He never mentioned his past unless absolutely necessary, and Kelly felt sure he wouldn’t have brought up the mysterious Old Ones who had raised him if there hadn’t been a strong correlation between their legends and the present facts.

  “Go ahead, 41,” he said. “Is there more you can tell us?”

  41’s gaze shifted from face to face. He seemed uncomfortable being the center of attention. “I think I have said all that I remember of the tales. The Invaders ... did not attack alone. Always in threes or multiples of three.”

  “The tape showed nine ships,” said Kelly. “That’s useful. Their thinking pattern may be trinary.”

  “Or they may be trinary beings,” said Phila. “Three symbiotic parts forming a whole.”

  Kelly glanced at 41. “Did the Old Ones ever mention what the Invaders look like?”

  “No.” 41 thought for a moment, his eyes focused on the past. Finally he gestured a negative. “I can think of nothing else. It was not much spoken of. It was a talking of sad times, when we were to be quiet and respectful within the circle of the temple fire. I was ... very young. I do not remember much. Except ...”

  “Yes?”

  41’s eyes lifted slowly to meet Kelly’s. “That I feel as though I should do vengeance upon them. It is an ... old feeling. I do not think it is mine.”

  Serula leaned forward. “Are you telepathic? Is it a command marker that was placed in your subconscious? You may be triggered by—”

  In a blur of movement 41’s prong was drawn and all three blades snapped open. Kelly dived forward and clamped a hand on his wrist.

  “Take it easy, 41. It’s just a question.”

  41’s gaze was locked on Serula with such intensity that for a moment Kelly feared 41 didn’t even hear him. Then he eased off, and Kelly released his wrist.

  “I don’t think you had better talk to him again, Captain,” said Kelly. Serula made no reply. He glanced at her sharply and saw that she was pale. She nodded in silence. “41, put away the prong.”

  41’s wrist flexed as he lowered the weapon. His fingers were clamped so tightly upon the haft they trembled. He drew an uneven breath and abruptly sat down.

  “I am not a tool,” he said roughly. “I am not marked, to be turned on by unseen hands, for terrible purposes. I am not—”

  “I know,” said Kelly in sympathy. This wasn’t the first time 41 had been accused of such things. It came of being half-Salukan, which seemed to awaken paranoia in some people. “Don’t worry about it. Siggerson, how much longer?”

  “We’re coming up on the position now,” replied the pilot. “Scanners are showing nothing peculiar.”

  “Everyone, get strapped in,” said Kelly. “We don’t want to be caught unawares again.”

  They scrambled to comply and sat tensely while Siggerson took them through sweep after sweep.

  “Nothing,” he muttered. “What now, Kelly? Our fuel reserves are half gone.”

  “Keep looking,” said Kelly.

  Siggerson shot him an exasperated look but turned the shuttle into a wider arc. No one spoke. Their faces were tight with suspense. Kelly held down rising impatience. He’d never been much good at waiting. Across from him Phila’s small thin fingers kept fidgeting, plucking at the knees of her black and silver uniform, folding the cloth into minuscule pleats, then smoothing it out.

  The vibration within the shuttle’s structure had grown worse. It was an irregular shake, and each time the shuttle faltered they all grew more conscious of the immensity of space waiting beyond a few centimeters of pyrillium alloy. The temperature within the shuttle had dropped ten degrees. Siggerson was trying to conserve energy. Kelly stared at his hands, keeping his mind blank.

  “That’s it,” said Siggerson, breaking the silence. “We’re wasting fuel circling out here. I’m calling Station 4.”

  “It will take hours for a message to reach them,” said Phila. “We don’t have that much—”

  “Nevertheless,” said Siggerson stubbornly. “I’m going to inform them of what’s happened.”

  He waited a moment as though expecting Kelly to stop him, but Kelly did nothing.

  “This is Shuttlecraft 2 from the ESS Jefferson ...”

  “Anyone care to play poker?” asked Caesar, pulling a deck of cards from his pocket. “The old-fashioned kind?”

  “God, Caesar!” said Phila. “How can you think of something as stupid as a game at a time like this?”

  “A diversion makes sense,” said Beaulieu.

  “Yeah,” said Caesar, shuffling the cards. “Better than sitting here like a stack of corpses, waiting for the air to run out.”

  “They don’t know we’re out here,” said Kelly suddenly. “We’re too small. Whatever kind of sensor is rigged on the gate, we’re not triggering it. Mr. Siggerson, does this shuttle have any kind of armament?”

  Caesar hooted. “This crate?”

  “No, it does not,” said Siggerson. “Your theory makes sense, Kelly, but we have no way to act upon it.”

  Kelly looked at Caesar. “What have you got? Come on, Samms! You’ve always got a few gadgets up your sleeve. How about some of that explosive gel?”

  “Yo,” said Caesar, starting to grin. He opened pockets in his uniform and pulled out three packets of the soft, explosive gel, a cuboid object small enough to be hidden in one palm, a coil of clear filament maybe a millimeter or two thick, and a supply of stylus-shaped detonators.

  Caesar looked up. “How big a bang do you want, boss?”

  “Big,” said Kelly.

  Caesar thought for a moment, then he unsnapped his safety harness and began crawling about the deck on his hands and knees. “Where’s the engine access hatch?”

  Serula pointed to the rear of the shuttle. Caesar went there, followed by Kelly and 41. They helped him spin the big release bolts and lifted the hatch lid. Smoke boiled out, choking them.

  Waving it aside, Caesar peered down through the hatchway. “What a piece of junk. I can detach a generator or the heat unit and wire it up with the gel. Short of putting us all in suits and blowing the shuttle herself, which seems to be slightly risky and irresponsible even for you, boss, I don’t think I can do better.”

  Kelly smiled. “Let’s get to work.”

  41 exchanged places with Siggerson at the controls, and the pilot supervised as Kelly and Caesar sweated during the next half hour to extract the heating unit from the engine housing. It was self-contained, possessing a battery pack that could power it for a limited time if the engine failed. Caesar studied it and attached two gel packs to it with precision.

  “Why not put them all on it?” asked Siggerson.

  “Because, Siggie boy,” replied Caesar, slipping the third gel pack back into his pocket, “two is enough to ignite the liquid nitrax in the c
ore of this baby.”

  “And because Caesar would rather have a bomb than a gun any day,” said Kelly.

  Caesar smiled at him and patted his creation. “She’s ready.”

  Using an anti-grav prod taken from the repair kit, they maneuvered the heavy heating unit into the airlock. 41 jettisoned it, and a few seconds later the viewscreen showed it tumbling into space.

  “Places, everyone,” said Kelly. “Siggerson, move us just out of range of the blast, but not too far away.”

  Caesar gave Siggerson a more precise range. The shuttle shuddered as she came about. Hurriedly they strapped themselves in once more.

  Kelly looked at Caesar. “Now.”

  Caesar activated the detonation. The resulting explosion rocked the shuttle hard. At once Siggerson moved the shuttle in closer.

  They waited for ten minutes.

  “Nothing,” said 41.

  Caesar shook his head. “Well, boss. Looks like either we didn’t knock hard enough or no one is at home—”

  It was like being dropped down a launch chute in a g-force training exercise. One moment they were stationary; the next they were plunging nowhere. Kelly gripped the arms of his seat, thankful for the safety harness that was cutting into him from the tremendous pressure. His flesh felt like it was sliding off his bones. He couldn’t breathe. His blood all seemed to be rushing into his skull. Everything blurred around him. Sound distorted into a wall.

  He wanted to scream, but he hadn’t enough breath. He shut his eyes and felt moisture seeping out around his eyelids. Tears or blood, he couldn’t tell. His sinus passages felt as though they were collapsing. Next his skull would cave in. The pressure was going to grind his body to a pulp. He was afraid to force open his eyes, afraid of what he might see, afraid that he couldn’t see at all.

  Then, as though the shuttle hit the bottom of a deep, black well, they jolted sideways. The horrible pressure eased off. For the first time in interminable seconds Kelly could breathe. He sucked in a lungful of air and cautiously cracked open his eyes.

  There was no light. He took his right hand off the armrest and groped with it. For an instant his fingers brushed 41’s sleeve, then they passed right through into nothingness.

  Kelly gasped. “41?” he said. His voice sounded faint and far away. “41? I think I just put my hand through you. Are you there?”

  He heard no reply. Chilled, he snatched back his hand. The shuttle had begun a slow, drifting spin. Kelly swallowed and shut his eyes. His heart was pounding so hard it hurt. Maybe, he thought dizzily as the spin became faster, they had finally gotten themselves into something they couldn’t handle.

  A distant babble of voices grew louder. At first Kelly strained to hear, until he realized the voices were in his head, an overlay of memories flashing back too fast to comprehend on a fully conscious level.

  Another jolt seemed to rattle all his bones together. He inadvertently bit his tongue and the sharp taste of blood helped him cling to something he could understand.

  Blinding light suddenly snapped on, blasting against his shut eyelids. Dazed, Kelly hunched in his seat until he realized that they had stopped moving. Slowly, not certain he wanted to look around, he opened his eyes. His vision was blurred, grainy, not quite in focus until he blinked several times, hard.

  He lifted his hands to his face, rubbing it. Around him the shuttle remained intact. The others looked crumpled in their seats. 41 was drenched with sweat, his golden hair matted in damp streaks against his skull. Phila, her eyes squinched tightly shut, was crying with silent sobs that shook her petite frame. Caesar’s green eyes stared into space, as vacant as though his mind had ceased to function. Siggerson had slumped over the controls, his shoulder blades making sharp points beneath his uniform. Beaulieu had her head tipped back. She kept saying, “No,” over and over. Captain Serula looked unconscious.

  Something clanged against the hull, echoing loudly. Kelly jumped and scrambled free of his harness in alarm. The shuttle jerked, nearly knocking him off his feet. He hurried to the controls, grasping Siggerson’s shoulder and pulling him upright in his seat to reach them.

  Siggerson sighed and opened his eyes. “What did we go through?” he whispered.

  “Don’t know,” replied Kelly, trying to activate the view-screen. He frowned at their position readings and thumped the console. “Is this working? I know we’ve moved. That was a hell of a ride somewhere.”

  “It says we’re back where we started.” Siggerson frowned and started running checks. “With junker Fleet equipment like this you never know, but everything appears to be in order. This just does not make sense. We can’t be at the same coordinates.”

  “But we are,” said Kelly thoughtfully. “Time travel? Maybe we’ve been all wrong about this parallel universe theory. Maybe we’re dealing with invaders from the past.“

  “Or the future,” said 41.

  “Great,” said Caesar, rolling his eyes. “I suppose we’ve fallen into a time loop and are trapped here for the rest of eternity. What do I do now? Rig another bomb? I’m running out of explosive fast, boss.”

  Kelly ignored his sarcasm. “We definitely went somewhere, even if we’re back now. Get these scanners going, will you, Siggerson? I want to know what’s happening outside.”

  The viewscreen wobbled on and displayed a black-hulled ship so vast it filled the screen. Its outlines showed up only because of a faint corona of light around it, and its configuration was an angular wedge, as solid and as featureless as polished obsidian.

  Kelly stared, unable to believe what he was seeing. The others crowded around, and Caesar gave a low whistle.

  “How big?” whispered Kelly in awe.

  “Twenty kilometers across. Four kilometers deep,” said Siggerson.

  “Yusus,” said Caesar, his jaw dropping. “Several space stations would fit in this baby.”

  “Amazing,” said Siggerson. “Even the Minzanese couldn’t begin to build a vessel of this size. How do they power her? Do you suppose she can go faster than light? The immense distortion required to push such a huge mass at that velocity would be—”

  The clang came again on the hull, and they lurched.

  “Commander,” said Siggerson in alarm. “Our power drive just cut off.”

  As if to emphasize his words, the lights went off. Seconds later they came back on, but they were dimmer, running off battery reserve.

  Kelly jumped from his chair. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re being towed,” said Siggerson.

  Kelly stared at the ceiling. “Any way to detach ourselves?”

  Siggerson did some checking. “No. I can’t locate a tractor beam. Hull sensors register nothing. Nevertheless, we are being pulled away from our position. We are moving toward that alien vessel. It is not natural drift. If we had the Valiant instead of this crate we could manage to ...” His voice trailed off and he didn’t complete his sentence.

  Kelly glanced around. There was no way he was going to sit here and be towed helplessly into the maw of that behemoth.

  “Time for Plan B,” he said briskly. “41, break out the weapons. Phila, you distribute the space suits. Caesar, all Fleet shuttles have an emergency access in addition to the main airlock. Find it and loosen it.”

  Caesar grinned. “Going out the back door? Yes, sir!”

  “Care to fill the rest of us in on this Plan B?” asked Beaulieu.

  “Standard operating procedure,” said Kelly, catching the suit Phila tossed to him and unrolling it with a deft shake. “We are about to confront an unknown species. We provide ourselves with environment, and we put a man on the roof just in case.”

  “And if their scanners pick up what we’re doing?” said Phila. “They’re bound to be monitoring us from every angle. What about hull burning?”

  “What’s that?” asked Beaulieu.

  While Phila explained the procedure of scouring a ship’s hull of contaminants or foreign bodies before accepting it into a station, Kelly
finished pulling on his suit. He checked his nostril plug for fit, allowed a minuscule amount of air to blow from his tanks, checked all levels to make sure the suit had been properly serviced, and tuned the communicator to the one he wore on his wrist.

  Meanwhile, Beaulieu was staring at him as though he had lost his mind.

  “Hull burning is a risk,” said Kelly. “But 41 and I aren’t going to be on the hull.”

  “Oh?” said Beaulieu. Her eyes suddenly widened. “You aren’t going to try free floating. Kelly, that’s crazy!”

  “Yes, it is,” he said a bit sharply. “If you will give me a chance to explain, Doctor, I’ll do so. We’re going to hide inside the power drive units on the tail.”

  “What!”

  A babble broke out as they all tried to speak at once. Coming from the munitions locker, 41 met Kelly’s gaze with a slight, unflappable smile. He handed Kelly a plasma pistol with both long- and short-range capability and moved about the shuttle to distribute weapons to the others. Even Caesar came skimming down the rungs bolted to the wall.

  “Boss, that’s crazy!” he said. “You’d be crisped with radiation in seconds.”

  “This suit can handle residue levels.”

  “I’m not talking about residue.” Caesar planted himself in front of Kelly. “Those drives—”

  “—are shut down,” said Kelly. “We’ll be fine.”

  “And if they come back on? We may be under some kind of damping field right now, but you can’t count on that.”

  Kelly glanced at Siggerson. “Shut them down on your board.”

  Siggerson complied. Kelly activated the charge on his pistol, wishing he had a diehard instead.

  “Ready, 41?”

  41 was suited, armed, and leaning against the wall by the rungs.

  Caesar shook his head. “I got a bad feeling about this stunt, boss. Why not wait until we’re in there, then we can all come swarming out together, half from the main airlock and half from the emergency hatch. That way we can—”

  “No,” said Kelly. “Get your suit on. I want everyone ready for atmosphere loss in sixty seconds. When they pull us in, this is going to be a dead craft.”