VOR 06 Operation Sierra-75

by Gressman, Thomas S

  “One more thing, sir,” Dade said. “The tracks we’ve been seeing? The ones that look like some kind of mechanical walker? On the approach to the wreck, Krista and I saw signs of at least two of the blasted things. Out there?” He gestured toward the open bay door and the gathering darkness beyond. “We saw signs of what might have been three more. I say ‘might have been,’ ’cause the signs are so confused it’s hard to tell. It might have been the same ones, but I can’t say for certain.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful, Dade,” Taggart said sarcastically. “Go get some sleep before you think of any more good news.”

  As the Marines headed into the cargo bay’s interior, seeking a clear space in which they could bunk down, Taggart gestured to Gunnery Sergeant Frost, beckoning her to follow him. Stepping out of the bay, Taggart easily picked out the two Marines stationed near the bay’s open door. He knew if he flicked on his suit’s light-amplification system, he’d be able to see two more men, stationed at listening/observation posts near Cabot’s bow and shredded stern. The close-in sentries had constructed fighting positions by digging a meter or so into the dry rocky soil. To complete the positions, they had piled up white limestonelike rocks in a makeshift parapet around the shallow foxholes.

  “Gunny, we’re gonna be here at least overnight. Maybe tomorrow night, too, I don’t know. Dr. Cortez wants to wait until her patient is stable before we head back to the landing zone,” he said quietly. “Even though we’ll be rotating sentries all night, I’d like to have more advance warning if any hostiles decide to approach the ship. What have you got in the way of remotes?”

  “Well, sir,” Frost said, “if you mean ground sensors, we aren’t in bad shape. We’ve got a dozen or so remote sensors, sentry-remotes. Nothing too big or fancy, mostly just trip-wire alarms, flares, that kind of thing. We have a few seismic and thermographic sensors. And I bet we could jury-rig a couple of Cabot’s survey probes into makeshift packages. All we’d have to do is tap into their telemetry and link it into our sensor monitoring systems.

  “If you want combat systems, you’re out of luck. We don’t have anything like an Automated Defense Drone, and I doubt we’d be able to lash one up, at least not too easily.”

  Taggart listened as Frost spoke. He knew the platoon’s remote sensor inventory as well as she did. This was merely his way of opening the discussion.

  “Personally, sir,” Frost continued, “I’d place our seismic and thermo sensors out toward the gully where we found the bodies, maybe one of Cabot’s probes, too. Put the trip-wire systems in closer. I’d also think of putting a couple of sensors and a probe on the far side of the ship. So far the aliens or whatever the hell they are haven’t displayed much tactical sense, just low animal cunning. Still, I’d hate to rely on the notion that they couldn’t learn from their mistakes, only to have them come at us from our blind side.”

  “Agreed,” Taggart said with a nod. “How many men will you need for the job?”

  “Six ought to do it sir,” she answered after a moment’s consideration. “And a couple more to see about the probes.”

  “All right, get to it. I want this area secured, before midnight if possible. I’m not really expecting an attack, but if one is headed our way, I’d like a little advance warning about it.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Frost said.

  “Onawa, this is for your ears only,” Taggart said, leaning close to his top sergeant. “My primary concern here is for the safety of this team, Cortez’s people as well as ours. However, I’m thinking we have another responsibility here. If we have encountered another alien race, like we think we have, I think we have a duty to bring back whatever intelligence we can gather on them.

  “The things that attacked Dade and Black have got to have a different physiology. They were not wearing any kind of mask or environment suit. Yet they seemed to be unaffected by this planet’s toxic atmosphere. I don’t think the Sovs are sophisticated enough to come up with some kind of mutant that can breathe carbon dioxide and ammonia, and live, even thrive, in a low-pressure environment. At best, they’ve found another race that can survive under these conditions, enslaved them, and turned them into a new kind of mutant.”

  “Well, sir, whatever they are, if they cross us again, we’ll do our best to blow ’em straight to hell. Still, begging the captain’s pardon, figuring out what those things are isn’t exactly in our department,” Frost said reassuringly. “Our job is to kill people and break things. Leave the heavy headwork to the high-priced pantywaist brain trusts back home. We get a chance, we’ll bag a couple of those ugly little bastards and take ’em home with us. Let the geniuses at UCLA and Caltech get the migraines on this one.”

  “Aaah, you’re probably right, Gunny,” Taggart said with a laugh. “Get those sensors on-line as quick as you can, okay?”

  * * *

  Gunnery Sergeant Frost, working with a fire team from First Squad, planted the seismic and thermographic remote ground sensor units as Taggart had directed. These devices were set to ignore anything weighing less than thirty kilograms or having a heat signature smaller than that of a ten-year-old child. The trip-wire-activated devices would have to wait until the jury-rigged sensor platforms cobbled together from two of Cabot’s probes were put into service.

  Three men in the already-divided platoon were found who knew enough about sensor packages to convert a scientific probe into a makeshift sentry drone. The work went remarkably fast, and the reprogrammed probes came on-line at 2130 hours.

  All that remained was to wait the night out and hope that the enemy lurking out there in the darkness would leave them alone.

  23

  Dr. Rebecca Cortez’s eyes flicked open, sleepiness vanishing as her vision rapidly adapted to the darkness of Cabot’s crew quarters. She sat upright in the bunk. Straining her senses, she concentrated on her surroundings. Was the noise that had awakened her a figment of her own imagination, a dream-sound inspired by the tension of the past few days? Cortez rarely remembered her dreams after being awake a few minutes, but her nightmare of being trapped in a charnel house had stuck with her, making her reluctant to close her eyes.

  If the sound hadn’t been a dream, what was it? Was it the badly damaged ship settling? Had one of her colleagues rolled over in sleep, knocking aside some small object, causing the slight skittering noise? Or was it one of the Marines? She knew Taggart had detailed one of his jarheads to check Cabot’s upper decks at irregular intervals. Had a sentry accidentally caused the sound that had dragged her from her fitful sleep?

  When the sound failed to repeat itself, Cortez put it down to a random noise. She lay back down on her bunk. Perversely, the more she tried to sleep, the more obstinately sleep refused to come. With an angry snort, Cortez tossed the blankets aside. She clambered to her feet, making as little noise as possible, trying not to disturb her sleeping colleagues.

  If I can’t sleep, she told herself, I might as well go check on Michelli. The comatose ensign had been taken to the other berthing compartment, just forward of the one she and her teammates occupied, which her team had converted into a makeshift sick bay.

  Picking up her bulky field jacket, she draped the garment over her shoulders. As she slipped into the companionway she glanced at her chrono. It was well past midnight, local time. The narrow corridor was dark, save for a few long-life, cold lightsticks the Marines had strung from the overhead. No doubt the sentry who made an occasional pass through this area of the ship relied upon the bioluminescent sticks to help him negotiate the twisted and buckled deck of the corridor.

  Something clanged in the darkness. The sharp metallic sound came from the ship’s forward section, near the bridge. Cortez fumbled in her jacket pocket for a small pencil flash she kept there. Not nearly as powerful as the Marines’ bigger angle-headed flashlights, the miniature light was primarily useful in checking pupillary reactions to light. Still, it provided a tiny pool of illumination that was somewhat brighter than the unearthly green glow given
off by the lightsticks.

  Cortez pointed the small flashlight toward the bridge and thumbed the plunger switch. The weak beam did little to repel the darkness in the companionway. Instead, its pale light only served to destroy her night vision and to highlight the deep pools of shadow beyond its feeble reach. The doctor took three careful steps toward Cabot’s bridge, when a soft scrabbling noise sounded from the ship’s command deck.

  Nervously, Cortez transferred the light to her left hand and groped around her right hip, searching for the Pug autopistol she wore there. With a chill, Cortez realized she had left the weapon next to her bunk in the crew’s quarters.

  At that moment, the door to the forward berthing space–cum–sick bay slammed open, and medical technician Nancy Reed stepped into the corridor, colliding forcefully with her chief. As the women reeled, fighting for balance, Cortez more imagined than heard a louder scurrying noise, punctuated by what sounded like a yelp of pain and surprise.

  “Dr. Cortez, I was just coming to get you,” Reed said breathlessly. “He’s awake. Ensign Michelli—he’s regained consciousness.”

  “Good,” Cortez said. “Go wake Dr. Grippo. Tell him. Then send someone to fetch Captain Taggart.”

  All thoughts of invisible boogeymen evaporated from Cortez’s mind as she pushed aside the door to the makeshift sick bay.

  Michelli lay on one of the crew bunks that had been converted into a jury-rigged pressure tent. She saw his eyes were open, but held a fuzzy, unfocused look, as though the ensign was having trouble knowing where he was. A nurse crouched on her knees next to the bunk, checking Michelli’s vital signs by means of a small electronic monitor. The device’s leads ran through the thick plastic of the pressure tent, and were attached to self-adhesive pads on Michelli’s chest, temples, and arms.

  The nurse, a thin, pale man originally from the American Midwest, looked up at Cortez’s entry.

  “He’s awake and responsive, Doctor,” the nurse said, getting to his feet. “Vitals are all good, though he seems to be having trouble concentrating.”

  Stepping closer to Cortez, he continued. “Doctor, he’s been asking about his ship and crew. I didn’t know what to tell him.”

  “It’s okay, Sam,” Cortez said. “I’ll handle it.” She took a deep breath.

  “Hello,” she said, giving Michelli the benefit of her best bedside smile. “I’m Dr. Lieutenant Rebecca Cortez, Union Space Force. How are you feeling?”

  “Ens . . .” Michelli tried to respond, but his words came out as a croaking whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Ensign Walter Michelli, ma’am. Third officer USS Cabot. I feel like death on a bun, ma’am.”

  “Mmmm, that’s to be expected.” Cortez knelt and scanned the condition monitors. Michelli’s blood pressure was slightly depressed, and his pulse rate a bit slow, but everything was within the range of acceptability. “You were in pretty bad shape when we found you. I wouldn’t worry, though, we’ve got a whole team of doctors here. You’re going to be fine.”

  Rapid footsteps sounded in the doorway behind her. Cortez turned just in time to see Captain Taggart and Gunnery Sergeant Frost enter the room. To his credit, the Marine officer hung back, waiting for Cortez to finish her examination of Cabot’s sole survivor before quizzing her on Michelli’s condition. Even so, there was a certain anxiousness in his stance.

  Cortez gave Michelli another smile, and said reassuringly, “You’ll be fine, Ensign. As soon as you’re fit, we’ll get you out of this bag and into an environment suit. We’ve got a rescue cutter waiting to take us back to Earth. We’ll leave as soon as you’re able. How’s that sound?”

  Michelli nodded, though sadness drifted across his drawn features.

  The doctor patted his arm through the thick plastic of the pressure tent. “Don’t go anywhere for a minute, okay?”

  She got to her feet and motioned the Marines to accompany her into the companionway.

  “How is he, Doc?” Taggart asked.

  “Physically? He’s fine. I can say without reservation that he’s going to make it. Emotionally?” She shrugged. “That’s hard to say. Sole survivors tend to have a lot of guilt. It’s stupid, but it’s true. They feel guilty because they survived and all their buddies didn’t. We’re going to have to wait and see.”

  “Can he answer a few questions, do you think?”

  Cortez considered the captain’s request for a few moments before answering.

  “A few,” she said. “If he balks at answering something, don’t press him. And when I say you’re done, you’re done, understand?”

  “Understood, Doctor.” Taggart nodded.

  Cortez stepped back into the compartment.

  “Ensign, this is Captain Maxwell Taggart, Union Ground Forces. He’s in charge of the rescue team,” Cortez said gently. “Do you feel up to answering a few questions for him?”

  Michelli’s face blanched. Cortez was afraid he was going to faint.

  “Captain, I’m sorry, I . . .” she began, but Michelli cut her off.

  “No, Doctor, it’s all right. I’ll answer the captain’s questions.”

  “Walter, are you sure?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve got to answer these questions sooner or later. I might as well do it while things are still fresh in my mind,” Michelli said resolutely.

  For a moment, she looked from Michelli to Taggart, then stepped aside to make a place for the Marine officer.

  “Just remember,” she said quietly to Taggart.

  “I know, Doc. I’ll be gentle.” He turned to Michelli.

  “Evening, Ensign. I’m Max Taggart. Dr. Cortez was right. I’m the CO of the rescue team. You feel like answering some questions for me?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good, good,” Taggart said, smiling. “Ensign, you’ve got to know the first thing I’ve gotta ask you. What happened here? Why did Cabot crash?”

  A cloud crossed Michelli’s features. He took a deep breath, sighed wearily, and began.

  “We were doing an in-atmosphere survey of the planet’s surface, using our ground-scan radar and thermal imagers. Captain Hu wanted to use the visible light cameras, too, but there was too much cloud cover. I’ve never seen a world where so much of the planet was cloudy all the time. We got three orbits in clean. Good imagery, nice clean scans. On our fourth pass, coming in over the plains west of here, we started picking up some chop, really severe stuff. Funny thing was none of the detection gear gave us any indication of why we were getting the turbulence.

  “As soon as we passed over these mountains, the turbulence kinda petered out. We figured it was a local phenomenon. God knows we’ve seen enough weird stuff since the Earth got sucked into the Maelstrom.

  “On our next pass, it was like someone tossed us into a mixer. I was off duty, in my rack, that one right over there.” Michelli pointed at an upper bunk opposite the one he occupied. “I got tossed out onto the deck. Landed on my back and got the breath knocked out of me. I was trying to get up when I heard the engines blow.”

  “Hang on a second, Ensign,” Taggart interrupted. “The engines blew?”

  “Well, the starboard engine anyway. It suffered a catastrophic failure in the reaction chamber. The engine blew itself all over the compartment. The portside plant got shredded in the blast. The explosion ripped a big gash in the hull and caused a big fire in the engineering spaces.”

  Michelli shuddered.

  “If Cabot had been in space at the time, I don’t think any of us would have survived long enough to know what was happening to us.

  “I headed for my duty station, on the bridge. I could hear the pilot swearing at the ship, trying to keep her under control with nothing but auxiliary power. I still can’t believe he managed to get us down without smacking us into one of the mountains.”

  “What about the crew?” Taggart asked.

  “I don’t know. I think most of the engine-room gang must have been killed when the engine blew. Those that survived were either
killed by the fire, or lost to explosive decompression when the hull let go.

  “The rest.” He sighed. “All the rest were killed in the crash, everyone but me.”

  “How did you manage to survive?” Gunny Frost asked with no hint of accusation in her voice.

  For a long while, Michelli did not answer. He lay back on his bunk, his face twisted. Tears leaked from the corners of his tightly shut eyes. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath. For a moment Cortez feared he was having a heart attack. When he spoke again, it was in a voice thick with grief and self-condemnation.

  “The truth is, I panicked when the engines blew. I ran right for the escape pod and sealed myself in. I tried to launch the pod, but it wouldn’t drop. The explosion must have warped part of the ship’s superstructure.

  “Everybody else was at their stations when we hit. The whole flight crew was on the bridge. They were all killed instantly. Captain Hu was almost cut in half. I had to take her out of there in two different body bags.” Michelli’s voice had become a tortured sob. “Lieutenant McBride didn’t have a mark on him, but he was just as dead as the captain. Everybody else was either killed by the crash or badly injured. After the crash, I tried to help the survivors, but I’m not a doctor. All I could do was keep them doped up so they didn’t suffer too bad.

  “Hayes had lost both legs. Piper was pretty badly burned, third degree, over most of his body. I couldn’t do anything for them, Captain. I gave them morphine, a lot of it. I couldn’t let them suffer.”

  “It’s okay, boy,” Taggart said, laying a hand on Michelli’s arm through the plastic of the pressure tent. He looked at Cortez, who shook her head.

  “No, let him talk it out,” she said. She could feel the anguish the young ensign must have lived with every day since the crash. “The sooner he gets all this out of his system, the better.”

  Taggart nodded grimly and, after giving Michelli a moment to compose himself, asked him to continue.

  “Well, sir,” Michelli said, sniffing and wiping his eyes with his fingers, “the central section of the ship was pretty much intact, or at least it was holding pressure. I did what I could with what I knew, and what I could scrounge out of the hard-copy manuals. I rigged up the ship’s auxiliary power cells to run the emergency communication system in the life pod. I was almost finished when those things came.