Julian Barrett’s crying was the only sound in the room. There was a hissing sound that was getting progressively louder. It was the air escaping from the hole left by the railgun sabot. Three more railgun discharges had hit the SS Glasgow’s fusion engine system, disabling it completely. The ship was still travelling at two thirds the speed of light, but it was slowing down rapidly. Vinn Apple looked at Frank Brooks. The ship’s pilot shook his head, but there was no need. Apple knew that these were Jonas’ last moments. Jonas’s eyes were wide with terror and he was still mouthing words that no one would ever know the meaning of. His head moved forward and, holding him tight, Apple and Vazquez could both feel the new tension in Jackson’s body. His mouth opened wider and a terrible, inhuman sound came from his chest. Michelle Vazquez bared her teeth in an agonised snarl. It was taking all her strength to hold onto Jonas now as his body was jerking from side to side. Jonas’s head twisted towards her and his eyes locked onto her eyes. She wanted to look away. His expression was horrific. She’d never seen anything like it. She desperately wanted to look away from those agonised, pleading eyes. But she knew she had to stay with him. She held his hand pressed hard against her left breast. His terror engulfed her, a deep coldness that chilled her all the way back to her childhood. She was standing outside in the rain again listening to her mother scream as her father tore the house apart. But here and now there was screaming too. Julian Barrett was wailing like a toddler lost in the woods. Frank Brooks was screaming and swearing. Vinn Apple was barking at Frank, but the older man was just swearing and cursing.
Jonas gurgled meaningless sounds from just above his abdomen as his grip on Vazquez’ hand – and his life – started to slide away. She didn’t know why she did it, but she leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek and somehow found that she’d dragged his hand onto her chest. Her eyes locked to his, she forced open his hand and placed it onto the thin material of her white tank top. She felt like she’d gone insane. Suddenly there was no shouting, no noise of any kind. Just the shocked silence deep inside her mind. She cupped her hand over the young man’s and held it there and locked eyes with him. It was the most tortured thing she had ever done, but somehow she managed to give him an almost steady lopsided smile. Michelle Vazquez leaned forward to kiss Jonas on the forehead, but she stopped an inch from his flesh. He was gone and she was left holding his limp dead hand.
The railguns had stopped hitting the ship. Vazquez didn’t realise that Brooks had changed course by ninety degrees in an effort to avoid the ship continuing to be a sitting duck. Even Brooks hadn’t realised how close the three fighters had gotten. The approaching Enrilean fighters were going too quickly to turn as their pilots fired the reverse thrust they were already shooting past the SS Glasgow. The remaining nine Enrilean fighters were about eight minutes behind the Glasgow, but the missiles were only seconds away from impact. In all the activity the missiles had been forgotten by everyone besides the still moaning Julian Barrett.
Vazquez was detaching Jonas’ dead fingers from her chest, her eyes closed. Brooks was working on sealing the holes left in the command centre by the railgun sabot. Vinn Apple was kneeling beside Vazquez, his large hirsute hands touching her shoulders lightly. There were tins of emergency sealant magnetically fixed to the hull of the control centre. Brooks had already emptied one and was vigorously shaking the thick foam out of another of the cylinders.
The cylinders had only ever been used once before. Almost a decade ago, when Apple had first acquired the ageing Alcatraz class transport, Apple had flown the ship too close to a comet trail and tiny fragments of ice and debris had peppered the outside of the ship. A larger fragment – just over the size of his fingernail – had penetrated the ship’s neck like corridor. Vinn had been flying the ship on his own and had only noticed the leak when the atmosphere alarms had sounded. He’d plugged the leak with an overzealous half tin spray of the foamy gunk.
“He’s dead,” Michelle Vazquez face looked crumpled and old. He cute lopsided smile was a crooked, haggard grimace. Her eyes were almost closed. Wet with tears, they stared blankly at Apple.
The missiles were close. Brooks was having trouble sealing the second hole left by the railgun round after it had passed through Jonas. SS Glasgow had slowed to about a half the speed of light. The missiles were only seconds away.
“I don’t know what to do,” Barrett was grinning insanely, standing like a tortured ballerina as he tried to understand Brooks’ console.
The wormhole was so close – but the missiles were closer. With the main engines damaged, SS Glasgow’s distance from the pursuing fighters was reducing dramatically with every passing second. Even the two fighters that had overshot the Glasgow were now mere moments away from bringing their railguns to bear on the spinning, slowing transport.
“Damn it Jackson,” Brooks was shaking the foam canisters furiously, “God damn it!”
Vazquez gently lowered Jackson’s head to the floor. She reached tentatively to his face, ready to close his eyes. Apple was there. His left hand cupper her smaller right hand whilst his free hand lowered the young man’s eyelids.
The Enrilean fighters Binntar and Korrin had overshot the Glasgow by a half million miles. They were closer now to the wormhole now than Apple’s ship. As the slowing earth vessel started to turn back towards the wormhole only Barrett realised that the ship was moving into the line of fire.
Rodrigues was on her haunches and getting up slowly. In fact, in her mind everything was happening like it was in slow motion. The danger had returned in a cold wave of fear. She was aware of Barrett’s whining and Brooks’ cursing. The air in the control room smelled wrong. Apple was at his console now, his fingers moving feverishly. He looked grim and determined. She didn’t realise that he’d left her side. How long had she been on the floor, cradling the dead Jonas Jackson?
The first missile malfunctioned moments before detonation and disintegrated both harmlessly and invisibly in a cloud of metal fragments. The other four missiles closed on the SS Glasgow, homing in on the ship’s massive heat signature.
“Don’t worry about it professor,” Brooks was suddenly by Barrett’s side, “The AM drive isn’t up to another quick change of direction,” He looked across to Jackson and the rapidly growing pool of blood that was spreading out around him, “I don’t know if he got it easier.”
“We’ve got to do something!” Barrett began to scream again.
2195AD - USS Neil Armstrong.
The USS Neil Armstrong emerged from the Capsicum wormhole ready to fight. Her two main energy cannons were fully charged and ready to fire. All sixteen torpedo tubes were loaded and ready to fire. But it was the forward dorsal and ventral Gatling guns that opened fire to comprehensively annihilate the closest two Enrilean fighters just as they were about to fire their railguns. The Enrilean pilots did not see the massive Earth ship that destroyed them. They just suddenly became bright flares of energy that plumed briefly before fading into a dull orange mist.
“Two enemy fighters destroyed,” Cutter snapped, “I have four unknown pings on active scanner converging rapidly on what appears to be an… Alcatraz or Dharma class transport.”
“Weapons free,” The Captain said, “Light them up, Mr Cutter.”
“With pleasure, Captain. Lieutenant Harris, fire at will.”
The Enrilean fighter pilots were caught unawares by the sudden appearance of the 90,000 ton spacecraft. It suddenly winked into existence, popping out of the unseen spatial wormhole with its guns blazing. The Enrilean pilots were well trained and the fast moving formation of four spread out immediately, increasing the space between each target for the new enemy. As the missiles detonated behind the now spinning SS Glasgow, two of the Enrilean fighters brought their railguns to bear on the new target. The projectiles flashed down the long noses of the alien fighters and streaked towards the USS Neil Armstrong. There was no time for any human being to react, but the Neil Armstrong point defence systems had been calibrated to super p
aranoid mode. The electron Omni ray mounted between the Gatling guns pulsed twice, disintegrating the railgun sabots with invisible rays of highly charged ionised particles.
“Point defence just lit up,” Cutter reported, “Enemy fighters have railguns, sir.”
“Target all fighters. Fire at will, repeat fire at will.”
“Targeting sir,” Harris said, “Firing now.”
The Gatling guns opened fire, bright orange streaks of energy lighting up the space between the massive earth ship and the four tiny Enrilean fighters. One of the fighters was cut in half by the Gatling gun plasma energy lances as it executed a relatively slow turn to bring its railgun to bear. The craft broke in half and the pilot found himself tumbling through space in his emergency chair. The other three fighters evaded the first salvo from the twin Gatling guns, but the second barrage – a mere half second after the first – destroyed both all but one of the remaining ships. Their pilots were killed instantly and did not suffer the same freezing, choking, agonised fate of their comrade.
“Enemy fighters destroyed,” Sylvean Harris announced proudly. Her smile seemed to brighten the command centre for a moment.
Liam O’Rourke looked at the main tactical display. It was situated at the front of the ship, directly in front of Cutter and Harris’ station. On it he could see the star called E28901 and the three undiscovered, unnamed and unknown worlds.
“There’s another wave of these small craft in sector delta 24,” Cutter pointed out, “Fifteen fighters moving at Mark five point six and accelerating. They’re in a heck of a hurry, Captain, but they’re still pretty far away from our current position. There’s a larger vessel in sector beta nine eight – about the size of one of our light cruisers. Looks like the ship that destroyed the Drake. There’s a debris cloud spreading out in that vicinity. It looks like it might be a wreckage cluster.”
O’Rourke considered the situation. There were 135 souls on board the USS Drake. Some were colleagues and friends of his. He already suspected that they were all dead – murdered by the mysterious Enrileans. The ruthlessness of the alien attack had been emphasised in the communications from CINCSPAC. The attack had been without warning. The alien spacecraft had hammered the Drake with powerful weapons not unlike those carried by the Armstrong.
“There’s a cluster of small craft in sector delta eight – about five hours away from us. It’s reasonable to suspect that they’re the same kind of ships that we’ve just encountered,” Harris stated, “They’ll reach us before we can intercept Drake.”
“How many ships?” O’Rourke stroked his cheek thoughtfully.
“I don’t know. They’re grouped tightly together. I’d guess not more than thirty.”
O’Rourke walked across to the communications officer. CINCSPAC had sent several BURST transmissions towards the Enrilean solar system’s three worlds but no replies had been forthcoming. The alien signals Drake had received had mostly been in English. They were being studied and scrutinised back on Earth. But the signals received had been transmitted using old fashioned analogue radio. The USS Drake was transmitting friendship messages on several radio frequencies now, but it would be twenty minutes before the first radio signals reached the nearest planet – Relathon.
“Captain, comm signal from the SS Glasgow. They have survivors.”
“Get Stamford’s rescue rocket immediately. Connick’s Predator group can provide support for the rocket. I want Stamford to take the Glasgow survivors back home. If the Glasgow won’t fly it’s to be destroyed.”
“Yes sir,” Cutter said without hesitation.
“Set course for the USS Drake incident site,” O’Rourke ordered, “Maximum speed. Put all sensors on full alert.”
TWENTY
2195AD - SS Glasgow.
“Glasgow, this is the USS Neil Armstrong. All enemy fighters in the vicinity have been neutralised. Power down your engines, fellas, and prepare to be boarded. What is your status, over.”
And that was it. The massive relief almost made Julian Barrett urinate inside his trousers. Vinn Apple gave Vazquez a cursory glance. Her eyes were glassy and cold. He looked at Frank and the pilot just shook his head slowly.
“Armstrong this is Glasgow. We are coming to a halt. Our main engine looks like its shut down or something. We have casualties. We… ah… We’re… we’re glad you guys decided to show up.”
“Roger that, Glasgow. What is your status? How many casualties do you have on board?”
Vinn closed his eyes. He opened them again quickly, seeing Jonas Jackson’s frightened staring eyes burning into his mind. He clenched a fist and hammered it against his forehead, trying to hammer the image out of his head.
“Yes. We’ve lost crew and passengers,” Apple said, “One dead crewman on the bridge here. Armstrong, what the Hell is going on?”
“Glasgow, I’ve got orders to bring you safely back to the carrier. Captain O’Rourke will explain everything when he debriefs you.”
A rescue craft departed the Armstrong’s aft hangar and the massive carrier sped onwards towards its goal. The rescue shuttle was slightly shorter than the damaged SS Glasgow. Six two man Predator fighters accompanied it as it rendezvoused with the Glasgow. As Lieutenant Commander Val Stamford took care of docking the rescue ship, the Predators spiralled outwards in a protective circle. It took Stamford three minutes to align the rescue ship’s dorsal universal dock with the Glasgow’s portside hatch and for the established airlock to pressurise. Brooks, Vazquez and Apple waited beside the Glasgow’s hatchway until the airlock was secure. Barrett hovered behind, shaking nervously and making occasional mutterings to himself. When the door opened a square face peeked through with a bright, toothy grin. Stamford pushed through the doorway, a short barrelled automatic rifle dangling by his right side. Behind him, two similarly armed men followed.
2195AD - Jann Linn’s Ship.
Matt Silverman opened his eyes. He’d blacked out for what seemed like only a moment. He realised quickly that more time must have passed than he realised. The inside of the ship was in near total darkness. The only light was a dim blue glow coming from somewhere a few metres away. There were no sounds at all. Just his own heart beating. His own breath, ragged and loud. The sound of his teeth chattering. He tried to make a sound – to call out to someone. Only a muffled groan came from his lips. And his lips were hard and solid, encrusted with ice. His tongue felt like something that did not belong to him. He breathed slowly and carefully – worried that he might choke on his own tongue. He had to concentrate to remember who he had tried to call out to. It came to him in a few seconds. He was already moving towards the only light source, numb fingers fumbling at the hard floor surface as he dragged himself to his knees. Each agonised digit felt like it might snap off as he flexed his hands. He felt great relief when every finger eventually moved to his command. He could barely move his legs at all. But each moment of pain and torment brought new feeling to his hands and feet. He coughed loudly, moaning Quinn’s name with the same action. He did not expect a reply and he did not receive one. He kept moving towards the light. It seemed brighter. His eyes were beginning to work better and the dull blue light was becoming brighter. It was a display panel. He realised that he was heading towards the front of the ship. He crawled over something soft and cold. It was a body. A dead body. He wondered if it was Quinn. There wasn’t enough light to see. He struggled to his feet, almost falling over as movement to his left startled him. His right hand plunged deeply into some soft part of the dead body as he tried to steady himself. He heard a familiar mechanical whine and realised that the robot was there in the darkness too – moving, or at least trying to.
“Robot. What is our status?” he commanded, “Robot! What’s happening?”
There was a crackle. Cass Linn was trying to speak, but the connections to her voice box had been damaged when her body had slammed into the hull. She was running on emergency battery power and had been trying unsuccessfully to restore the connections to
her main power source. One of her legs had become mangled when she’d tumbled backwards and through the storage room door. Her body was jammed in the doorway, her arms too weak to pull her heavy body out. She continued to crackle as Matt Silverman fumbled his way towards her inert frame. He found the robot after a few seconds of searching in the darkness.
“Robot, can you hear me?” he found her glass head and touched it carefully, “Robot, what happened?”
Cass Linn felt frightened. It was one of the first feelings she had experienced and one she had then known every single day. It was the feeling she disliked most of all. The one that she wished she could switch off. But it was not possible to switch off the feelings without other parts of her mind functioning very differently. She felt hands touching her face and she was scared that more of her glass dome would fall apart. Her eye was not working, but her automatic repair system could fix that. The camera itself was undamaged. The connections to her electronic brain had been severed and her repair system could eventually bridge the small gaps. The hands pulled more vigorously at her head. There was shouting and cursing. Cass Linn let out a terrified electronic squeal, shorting out her voice box completely. She stared unseeing at the strange man who had seemingly tried to pull her apart.
Matt let the robot go in sudden surprise. He fell painfully onto his rear end. The electronic scream had penetrated right to the back of his teeth. It stopped abruptly after two long seconds as he held his breath. He waited another few seconds for something to happen, but nothing did. There was only silence. Even the robot’s crackling had stopped. In the darkness, Cass Linn was unmoving and silent. He realised that his sunglasses had somehow appeared in his left hand. He didn’t know when he’d found them or if they’d been there all along. He put them on in a trembling flurry of movement. He managed to flick the night vision control on the third attempt, shuffling backwards away from the dormant robot as his unfeeling hands worked. The old glasses flickered to life and in a few moments the inside of the ship appeared clear and bright.
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 35
