The Animus Gate (Book One of The Animus Trilogy)

by Thomas M. McNamara

  “Ops,” said Stillwell, “have we located the command element?”

  “Sir,” said Lt. Commander Novak, “based on intercepted traffic, the element appears to be aboard the Demeter, a Valiant-class light cruiser. Pinging coordinates now.”

  The Demeter appeared on the main projection as a tiny dot in the area of Ganymede.

  “Weapons, analysis,” said Stillwell.

  “The Demeter is a current-generation warship manufactured by the Sherezi,” said Beacham. “Roughly comparable to our own light cruisers. Stronger armor and a thicker hull, but their cannons have lower range, and their flight bays accommodate fewer ships.”

  “All right, then,” said Stillwell. “I want a pod targeting solution on the Demeter for one half of the complement. Reserve the rest to intercept and secure the Pegasus in the second phase. And let’s clear a path for our pods. Scramble all fighters and bombers. Standard attack formations. And do not fire upon the Pegasus if she comes into play. We’re not hauling a pile of scraps back to the emperor.”

  Stillwell stretched languidly. “And can someone get me a coffee?”

  ✽✽✽

  Darius was still suiting up on the Demeter when the klaxons began wailing. Naturally, the imperial fleet was here several hours ahead of projections.

  As soon as he’d donned his helmet, he was pulling up his mother’s location. She was still onboard. “Son of a bitch.”

  He opened a channel to Nadira and exited the armory into the main corridor. It was crawling with crew and Federation Marines. “Nadi, we’re out of time. I need you with me.”

  “I’m no soldier, Darius. Not like you are.”

  “You’re not staying with me. I need you to help me get my mom and my uncle off this boat.” He weaved through the crowd and almost tripped over a bulkhead door.

  “They’re still here? I think there are only a couple shuttles left, D.”

  “And now that we’re in battle mode, they’re probably going to go quick,” said Darius. “I don’t think we should even try. I’m gonna be aiming for the escape pods instead. Even the imperial Navy won’t fire on those.”

  “We’re not supposed to use those until the captain orders an evac.”

  “Nadi, by the time we get to the pods—” He nearly bumped into her in the corridor. “Other way.” He gestured past her shoulder. “They’re just two more bulkheads down, come on.” He shook his head ruefully. “This fight is gonna be one for the history books.”

  “That depends on who will write them,” said Nadira.

  Things looked messy out there. Federation squadron A was already taking heavy losses. And before he could even finish figuring out what to do with that information, something started slamming into the ship. More than a dozen separate impacts reverberated across the hull.

  Since the Demeter was still intact after that barrage, it could only mean one thing: breaching pods. So the empire planned on storming the vessel instead of blowing it to pieces. But since he wasn’t dead yet, things were looking up.

  The captain opened the all-ship frequency. “Demeter, we are being boarded. You have ten seconds to prepare for spin and gravity field countermeasures.”

  If the imperial Navy wanted this ship that badly, they would have to earn it.

  Everyone in the corridor moved to the starboard wall, which was closest to the outer hull. They each planted one foot against the wall, except for Darius and Nadira. With the path clear, the two of them broke into a run to try and get as close to his mother’s cabin as possible before the Demeter went fully centrifugal and enabled GFC.

  They made it halfway before they had to stop and plant their feet, then the ship began to rotate and shut down its regular matrix of gee fields. It would be slow at first, but she’d soon gather enough steam to transfer at least one gee from the floor to the outside wall. Darius prayed that his mother and uncle had at least gotten themselves into pressure suits when they heard the announcement. They would probably also need magnetized boots to reach the pods now.

  He stepped through the last bulkhead, and a unit of imperial Marines were already crawling out of a pod that had jammed itself between him and his mother’s cabin. It was surrounded by the bodies of his comrades.

  Darius activated his shoulder-mounted ordnance launcher and lobbed a shock grenade at the center of the group. He couldn’t use anything explosive here without risking rapid decompression. The grenade popped open and electrocuted several Marines. He sprayed the rest of them with rifle fire, and they retreated back into the pod.

  Darius ran up to the pod door, pulled a frag grenade off his belt, and tossed it within. It went off seconds later, and the shrapnel blew a hole in the far side of the pod. Amid the screams and the roar of rapid decompression, he extended his rifle into the doorway, using its scope to see for him. The view in his visor confirmed that these Marines would not be making a second attempt.

  He slapped a button on the outside of the pod that would shut its door, and the environmental seal was mostly restored. He had put a few bullet holes in the wall during the exchange, but it looked like the outer hull had absorbed the damage.

  The ship’s newly acquired axial spin had now fully established the starboard wall of this corridor as the floor. His mother’s cabin was on the port side, so its door was effectively in the ceiling above him now.

  He opened a channel to his mother. “Hey Mom, I’m at your cabin door now. Are you there?”

  “Y-Yes, darling. What—what in the name of the gods is going on out there?”

  “I’ll explain on the way. I’m opening your cabin door now—don’t shoot.”

  He slid the door aside, and his mother looked down at him. Uncle Omar was beside her, shakily holding a pistol. It looked like they were still getting their pressure suits on.

  “How are we supposed to get down there safely?” asked Zara.

  “Hang yourself out the door, Ma. Then drop the rest of the way. I’ll catch you. Don’t worry, my suit can handle it.”

  “Decks two and four,” said the captain, “prepare for gee countermeasures.”

  The dim emergency power cracked on, and the corridor was bathed in strobing red lights.

  “Mom!” said Darius. “Lock those mag boots down, now!”

  The moment that Zara and Omar activated their boots, the gee went wild.

  The Demeter violently randomized the output of its undamaged gravity fields. Debris bounced all over the corridor, and he reflexively covered his head, even though this suit gave him plenty of protection already. A seat cushion from his mother’s cabin shot out into the corridor, paused in front of him as though it were surprised to find him there, then darted astern and smacked into the wall. Its stuffing flew everywhere, and then the stuffing followed its own erratic trajectories.

  “Decks two and four,” said the captain, “gee countermeasures concluded. Decks one and three, prepare for gee countermeasures...”

  The sound of a rifle burst echoed down the corridor from the bow. Federation and imperials were evidently exchanging fire down that way, which would complicate a safe retreat to the escape pods. He dashed to the forward bulkhead, to see if he could turn the tide and create an opening. There was also the problem of the imperials making their way to the bridge and assuming control.

  With another series of rifle bursts, the Federation Marines were falling back through the bulkhead door just as Darius got there.

  “Is everyone clear?” he asked one of them as bullets whizzed past. They nodded.

  He pulled the pin on the second of his three frag grenades and lobbed it through the door. The red strobe of an emergency light caught it in a blood-red freeze-frame as it flew out of sight. He wrenched the lever that would slam the bulkhead door closed. Moments later, the entire wall wall sang with a staccato burst of shrapnel hitting it from the other side. That would slow the enemy down.

  “All hands,” said the captain, “prepare to evacuate. I repeat, all hands, prepare to evacuate the ship.”


  Things must have been going badly in the corridors.

  A silent self-destruct timer popped up in his visor.

  Things were definitely going badly.

  Darius opened a private comm channel. “Nadira, we’re losing the ship. And I need you to do something for me.”

  “I know what you’re going to ask,” she said, “and the answer is no. You’re coming with us.”

  “We can’t afford to let them get control of the ship, Nadi. Not yet, anyway. The plan needs more time.”

  “Gods dammit, D. Why do giant explosions follow you wherever you go?”

  “Hey, only one of those was my fault.”

  Darius ran back down the corridor, but only to hand her his sidearm, a magazine, and his last frag grenade. “Don’t forget that Omar is a veteran. He’ll be able to cover you. Between the two of you, I know you’ll get through.”

  “Darius—”

  “We need more time, Nadi. If they take control of the Demeter before we get to the next phase, they’ll see the whole battlefield. They’ll know our whole plan. It’s all or nothing now.” He ran back to the forward bulkhead and continued talking to her over the radio. “There’s a maintenance tunnel that will take you halfway there. I’ve marked the route on your map. Worse comes to worst, you can hide in there until I get back.”

  “Right, until you get back,” said Nadira. “Well, you’d fucking better, if it comes to that. Because they’ll be hauling this whole rig into a navy shipyard after they wipe the floor with us. There’s no getting out at that point.”

  “Can’t talk now,” he said. “Get in that tunnel.”

  His mother dropped out of the cabin, and Nadira caught her. Zara looked at him with fear in her eyes.

  His mother had a helmet on, so he talked to her over the radio. “Mom, I gotta do one more thing before we can get out of here.”

  “Darling—”

  “Mom, if I don’t do this, we might not get out of here. You just go with Nadi and Omar. Shoot anything that looks like an imperial.”

  He tried not to picture it.

  He waited until they were through the rear bulkhead. The strobing lights caught them in flashes of crimson every few seconds as they gained distance. Flash. Flash. Flash. Then they were gone.

  He took a deep breath and threw the forward bulkhead door open again.

  ✽✽✽

  “Tactical, status report,” said Stillwell.

  “Sir, pilots report four casualties,” said Li. “Enemy wings have been wiped out. Ninety percent of the pod launch reached the Demeter. Two landed on Ganymede.”

  “Why haven’t they captured the ship yet, Novak?”

  “Forces are encountering unexpected resistance, sir. Reports are that the Demeter has an advanced gee control system. And...someone on board is running around with frag grenades.”

  “All right, hell. Send the rest of the Marines.”

  “Sir,” said Li, “the Demeter is spinning rapidly on its axis. Successful attachment to the hull will be difficult. The AI predicts a substantial loss of personnel.”

  “Don’t we have a detachment in their engine room?” asked Stillwell. “Shut down the thrusters!”

  “Sir,” said Novak, “the Demeter’s engine room controls have been fried, and its engineers are either dead or MIA.”

  “Fine...we send in half of the remaining grunts. And we set their pods to halt ninety percent of the way there. They’ll EVA the rest of the way. Recalculate the traversal.”

  “Yessir,” said Novak. “With the adjusted parameters, it will take the second wave of pods nine and one half minutes to arrive.”

  “Make it so.”

  Stillwell took a sip of his coffee. I was already getting cold.

  “Sir, I have something coming up on the scanners,” said Novak. “It looks like there’s another enemy wing coming in from the port side of Jupiter. The readings are...sir, I think they’re towing objects behind them.”

  “Objects like what? Space junk?”

  “Sir, if my readings are correct...asteroids. They’re towing asteroids.”

  Stillwell took a moment to work through the implications of that.

  “Sir?” asked Novak.

  “Commander, I want all warships in their path to shift starboard and out of range. Then focus all fire on them.” The fleet had to move because shooting at asteroids with these weapons would merely break them into smaller pieces that were still quite dangerous to a ship’s hull. The good news was that asteroids were too heavy for those fighters to drag back in the direction of his fleet.

  “And the Demeter, sir?” said Li.

  “Yes, the asteroid debris will endanger the second wave of pods. Cancel their deployment. The Marines already onboard the Demeter will have to hold on until we can reinforce. Also, where the hell is the Pegasus? How can something as fat as a colony ship disappear from the board?”

  “Sir,” said Novak, “our scouts on the far side of Jupiter have not been able to locate her.”

  “But that’s where she went, isn’t it? Is it hiding in the clouds or something?”

  “Not as far as they can tell, sir.”

  “Well, keep hunting, dammit. How far could it have gone around this damned planet? We can’t let this relic slip away from a ship of the line.”

  “Yessir.”

  Stillwell grunted. No wonder Ubara hated these insurgents so much. Right pain in the ass. “You, Ensign,” he barked. “Get me another coffee. This one's gone cold...”

  ✽✽✽

  Darius moved through the grim distance between himself and the bridge amid ragged metal, sparking wires, bodies, and shell casings. As the strobes flashed, he kept expecting them to catch someone getting back up to continue the march, or another enemy squad flooding through a bulkhead door. He stooped to release the mag in the rifle of one fallen comrade after another. None were full.

  The gee countermeasures continued apace, flinging the dead and their detritus; Darius leaped, crawled, and dodged around one barrage after another. If anyone still controlled this system, they were no longer responding to hails. But it was a dark confirmation that the enemy had not yet taken over the ship.

  He was almost to the bridge now. It lay in the center of the ship’s axis of rotation. He’d come far enough for his corridor to converge with the one that ran along the other side of the ship’s spine.

  He poked his rifle around the corner to take a peek.

  Someone had cut through the last bulkhead door with a torch. He saw no one in the corridor outside. Beyond that lay the bridge itself.

  This was it.

  He took a breath and stepped into view. No one opened fire. He crept forward as quietly as he could. His visor scanned visible light, infrared, UV, and even sonar. Nothing. He kept creeping. His left hand felt clammy again. Even now, even after everything he’d been through, he could still be afraid.

  A shadow moved across the bulkhead door, and he froze. It sounded like someone was coughing. He moved to the right side of the entrance to the bridge and checked his mag. It was about half full. He had another half-full mag on his belt, then he was out. There was no time to combine them. But it was not as though he had a timer; instead, his clock was a sense of rising urgency.

  The entrance the boarders had made was several meters above him and right on the axis. His magboots were rubberized, so he crept up to the entrance to get a look inside.

  He got close enough to reach out with his rifle, and he put the feed from its scope on his visor again. This time he saw people. Alive, for once. They all had their backs to him, and they were all wearing the armor of imperial Marines. Four of them. They were floating around the captain’s chair in the center of the room.

  Darius crept up until he was standing right on the rim of the entrance. He supposed he was now looking “down” into the bridge. There didn’t appear to be any more troops moving around. He took a deep breath and aimed for the backs of their necks, where the armor was thin. He got two of them be
fore he had to duck back into cover. Return fire whizzed past his head and ricocheted everywhere.

  “Decks two and four,” said the automated recording, “prepare for gee countermeasures.”

  Instead of planting his feet this time, Darius stood on the tips of his toes. He needed something unexpected to throw off these imperials, now that they had a fix on him. Seconds later, the countermeasures whined, and he was flung away from the entrance. He now floated in the area where the two corridors merged, exposed to enemy fire.

  A grenade came gliding at him from the bridge.

  It seemed that he had just zagged when he should have zigged.

  But the fear faded, and beneath it was almost a kind of calm. He had done everything that he could, and Nadira and his family could probably get away now, because he’d mopped up most of the people who would come looking for them.

  But in the middle of the grenade’s arc, the countermeasure hit its second stage. Darius was thrown through the door and onto the bridge, and the grenade went flying towards the nose of the ship along with him. It went off just as he was slamming into a console on the other side of the door. The impact knocked the wind out of him, and a spray of shrapnel dug into the other side of his unexpected cover. If it hadn’t been there, he probably would have been shredded.

  As it was, judging by the screams and yelling, the two remaining Marines had both caught some of their own shrapnel. So there was still enough atmo in this part of the ship for sound to carry. According to his sonar, the two remaining hostiles had scrambled to cover on the far side of the bridge.

  There was no time to plan. Imperial reinforcements were surely imminent. If he was going to take control of the bridge and obtain cover before more hostiles came through that door, he had to press forward and take out the last two Marines on the bridge before they squared up. Otherwise he could be sandwiched between the two groups.

  Darius peeked over the console to check the parameters of the room. Because of the Demeter’s spin, the port and starboard walls of the bridge were effectively two floors with at least one gee each. The console that took up the far side was now basically a long vertical wall about one meter wide that the last two Marines could stand behind for cover.