by Rick Partlow
"Roger that."
It was easy to tell someone not to look at the Nothing; it was a damn sight harder to follow that advice yourself. It drew your eye to it, drew your attention even when your vision was focused elsewhere. She shook her head to clear it, then grabbed the magnetic grapple from the polymer case next to the lock and leaned out through the airlock, attaching the anchor to the hull just outside the hatch.
The spool of wire played out, dangling downward from the Deck Six escape pod back towards the fusion drive bells that loomed massively behind the ship. She could actually see the drive bubble where it coruscated in reaction to the aether of another universe just a couple meters from the ship, a vague, crackling line of force that seemed way too close to them. A shudder went through her but she gritted her teeth and swung out onto the hull, attaching a magnetic boot sole to the smooth, grey metal and clinging to the wire from the grapple.
This was really going to suck.
It wasn't a physical strain to hold onto the cable, even under one gravity; not with her augmented musculature. But it was awkward as hell to walk down the sloping hull of the Thaddeus Moore with the EVA suit's magnetic boots, bent at the waist and the knees, while supporting the other half of her weight with the rope. And she didn't dare straighten up for fear that she'd get too near the edge of the drive field.
If it was hard for her, she knew it was going to be an absolute nightmare for Velazquez; but he followed her out the door without much hesitation. He swung out onto the hull a bit awkwardly, his feet scrabbling beneath him for purchase until he got one sole flat against the biphase carbide and it stuck. He settled down then, falling slowly and laboriously into the foot-over-foot descent as Kara McIntire climbed out a few meters above him on the cable.
There was no sense of motion through the Nothing, Holly noted, sneaking glances at it even as she tried not to. The ship seemed stationary, the Nothingness homogenous and still, as if they were all stranded in some eternal limbo. She snorted quietly as she thought about her mother.
After Callie had gone off the deep end, Mom had retreated into some Fundamentalist Zoroastrian cult, searching for some meaning to everything. They believed that, when you died, you had to cross a bridge to Heaven, with a lake of fire underneath it. If you'd lived a good life, you crossed a nice, wide span while a beautiful woman guided you; but if you'd been a bad person, you crossed a sharpened sword blade, harried by a cackling hag. And when you fell, you'd burn forever in the fire.
None of those weird assholes had ever been outside in Transition space, Holly decided. If they had, they'd have adjusted their image of Hell.
She suddenly realized she hadn't moved in five seconds and she had to force herself to concentrate on the form of the ship beneath her instead of even thinking about the Nothing. It was a handsome ship, a top-of-the-line cruiser built shortly before the end of the war. It stretched beneath her, a mountain of biphase carbide and nickel-iron alloy, a wedge of human technology cutting through a hole in the universe. She hadn't appreciated how truly massive it was before; it had actually seemed cramped and claustrophobic from inside. Now, it was an insurmountable chasm looming beneath them, full of protuberances and yawning gaps that threatened her precarious hold on its glass-smooth surface.
She walked her way around a bulbous tumor bulging out from the hull, a gravimetic sensor blister used for navigation in T-space. It was the size of a small building, and it took a detour of ten meters to her left to bypass it; the line stretched taut in her hands and she began to worry about having enough cable from the grapple. They still had about another hundred meters to get to Engineering level and, to the best of her headcomp's calculations, they had a fudge factor of about twenty meters on that cable to get there.
She swore as another obstacle presented itself; this time it was a gap rather than a bulge. A dark trench three meters wide and of indeterminate depth revealed itself as she twisted around to check their route. She knew what it was: one of the attachments for the dry dock where Fleet ships were serviced. Knowing didn't make it easier to circumnavigate. She could see Velazquez' legs trembling as they shuffled around it and she knew he had to be in agony.
Not much further, she assured him. Let me know if you need a rest.
"Don't worry about me," the Lieutenant said. He was trying to sound casual but she could hear the strain in his voice.
She nearly snapped at him not to be a hero, but she immediately realized that they didn't have enough air in the emergency tanks to take too many breaks. Better to just get it done with as quickly as possible. There was only about thirty meters to go anyway.
Then the damn line ran out. She felt it before she saw it, felt her right hand slip off it and grasp at nothing and she clamped down with her left hand, twisting her torso around to see that yes, there was no cable left.
Hold up, she said quickly, seeing Velazquez still stepping backwards towards her. That's the end of the cable.
Son of a bitch, Kara cursed.
"What do we do?" Velazquez asked, coming to an abrupt halt, arms trembling with effort.
Time for plan B, Holly told them. She leaned forward into the hull, trying to put her center of gravity as near vertical as possible as she let loose of the cable. She felt a sudden, irrational fear that she would suddenly fall away into the Nothing, but her magnetic boots held.
She slid one boot back at a time, ever so slowly, keeping her palms flat against the ship, using the sheer power of her byomer muscle augments and her Reflex armor to keep her body position against the artificial gravity field. It felt as if the thirty meter climb down to the Engineering escape pod hatch took hours, but she knew it was only a few minutes until she drew level with the airlock. It was probably faster than the way they'd been moving, but the problem was, of the three of them, she was the only one she was sure could pull it off.
The hatch controls were locked down, but the wireless connection was active. Her headcomp penetrated it with little effort and the outer lock door slid aside. Holly scrambled into the chamber, feeling a massive relief at being inside again. She rifled through the utility cabinet just inside the outer lock and pulled out the magnetic grapple there, identical to the one they'd retrieved from the lock at Deck Six.
Heads up, she transmitted to Kara. It's coming your way.
She leaned out the lock and whirled the magnetic anchor over the head by the cable, then launched it towards Kara McIntire. The heavy alloy anchor sailed barely a half-meter by Lieutenant Velazquez' head and she saw him jerk back as it passed. For a moment, she thought it would soar right past Kara, but the woman's hand snaked out at the last second and snatched it out of the... Not the air, Holly thought irrelevantly, the vacuum.
She watched the DSI officer attach the anchor to the hull beside her, then transfer over to the cable from that grapple. Velazquez imitated her, stepping gingerly to his right and grabbing the new safety line with desperate ferocity. Then he started downward again, moving faster than before, as if he was very eager to be back inside the ship.
Can't blame him for that, Holly thought.
She caught his arm when he was beside the door and pulled him into the lock, his hands locking on her shoulders for just a moment as he steadied himself. He backed away, closer to the inner lock door and smiled apologetically.
"Sorry, ma'am," he said, breathing deeply like he was trying to get his heartbeat under control.
You're doing fine, Lieutenant, she assured him, disentangling herself from him and moving back to the outer hatch.
Kara was coming down the second cable even more quickly than Velazquez had, using her own augments to the full extent of their capabilities now that he was out of the way. Holly noticed that Kara's leg had brushed the end of the original cable as she passed it, causing it to swing out to the edge of the ship's drive field. She felt her mouth curl into a snarl as the end of the cable actually touched the Nothing and a flare of liberated energy coruscated across a meters-wide section of the drive field follow
ed instantly by a concussive blast of gravimetic energy. That concussion hit Kara McIntire like an ocean wave just as she separated one of her magnetic soles in preparation to take a step, and the force of it was enough to pry the one boot sole off the hull and send her falling backwards down the bull towards the drive bell.
Chapter Twenty-Three
"Fuck!" Jose Velazquez exclaimed in an explosive, involuntary splutter that made some small part of Holly's thoughts that had the luxury to devote itself to irrelevancies judge that he'd normally be reticent about cursing.
Holly could think about the young Lieutenant's profane vocabulary because the rest of her mind wasn't thinking at all, just acting out of instincts and programming honed decades ago. Her headcomp calculated Kara's trajectory and velocity in a millisecond and then Holly Morai swung out of the open lock and grabbed the cable. The twisted cord went from fitfully twitching to taut in an instant as her weight yanked on it, and she found herself arcing way from the escape pod lock like a pendulum, putting her just in the right place to grab Kara McIntire by the beam emitter of her slung pulse carbine.
The DSI agent halted with a bone-jarring snap that might have killed a Norm, and Holly grunted with the strain despite her own augments and Reflex armor: Kara wasn't a light woman and she'd built up considerable momentum in the fall, plus she felt very much like dead weight at the moment. Holly gritted her teeth and pushed off the hull with her foot, swinging back towards the airlock. Velazquez' hands grabbed at her, pulling her and Kara into the lock and down clattering to the floor in a heap.
Holly had the presence of mind to toss the cable back out through the lock before she sent the controls a signal from her neurolink to close the outer door and start pressurizing. Then she rolled Kara over and saw, to her relief, that the other woman was still conscious, though her eyes were blinking and unfocussed.
Might be concussed, she said, including Velazquez in on her thoughts via her neurolink. Probably is...she stopped pretty short when I grabbed her.
"Are you okay, Major McIntire?" the Security officer asked, leaning over and shaking Kara's shoulder.
I'd be better if you'd stop shaking me, Kara transmitted, grabbing his arm with enough force to make the man wince.
"Sorry," he said, stepping back from her.
Kara rolled over to her knees and grabbed the pulse carbine off her back, using its butt stock to lever herself to her feet. Her eyes seemed to come back to focus and the expression on her face sharpened, undoubtedly aided by stimulants from her implant pharmacy. That would only work for a while before she crashed; hopefully a while would be long enough.
"That reaction with the drive field," Velazquez was saying, trepidation in his voice as his eyes flitted back and forth between the lock's indicator lights and the still-closed inner door, "they might notice that if they're paying attention to the sensors. They could figure out we were outside the ship."
Arm yourself, Lieutenant, Holly instructed him, unslinging her carbine and holding it at the ready.
Velazquez looked down at the pistol holstered at his hip, eyes widening as if he'd forgotten it. He flexed his fingers for a moment, then yanked it out and checked the load. Holly had made sure to release the identity interlocks from the weapon before she'd given it to him, so it would fire for anyone, not just her. He seemed competent enough with the gun, thankfully, if not with small unit tactics; she shoved him to the edge of the featureless door, away from the dead center where he'd been standing. Kara stepped in behind him while Holly took the opposite wall.
The lock's indicator lights flashed green and the inner door slid open with what seemed to Holly like glacial slowness. She tensed for what she expected to be an explosion of gunfire, but the only thing that faced them on the other side of the hatch was a dimly-lit locker room. Rows of benches and sealed polymer lockers lined the walls, each of them filled with radiation suits and respirators for use in case of emergency conditions. The locker room was separated from the main Engineering section by a thick, armored wall and a rounded hatch that could be sealed against radiation or gas leaks. The hatch was open and light poured in from the main section, along with the low rumble of Tahni voices.
Over there, Holly told Velazquez, pointing at the far corner opposite the door. He nodded and took up a position that would let him fire at anyone coming through.
Then she moved to the edge of the doorway and paused, letting her headcomp work with her senses and her implant sensors to get a sense of what was on the other side. Voices echoed off bulkheads, bodies generated heat, the Tahni equivalent of hearts and lungs pumped blood and respired, the soles of boots scraped on the deck. It painted a picture for her headcomp, filling in blank spaces with four generic figures in body armor.
Four of them in the Engineering compartment, she told Kara.
There were eleven in the docking bay, the other woman reminded her. If we assume their squads are evenly divided, then...
The other seven are probably in the corridor, guarding the approaches from the lifts and access tunnel, Holly finished for her.
Can you access the controls remotely? she thought Kara's neurolinked "voice" sounded hopeful.
They've got everything locked down, Holly told her. She patted a pouch on her equipment belt. I have a computer module that'll get me access if I can plug it into the Engineering console physically. It was a damn lucky thing she'd thought to bring it, too. It had been standard equipment back in the day, but she hadn't used one for nearly twenty years. She'd found it in Kara's gear and grabbed it out of impulse a couple weeks ago, thinking she might have to use it to penetrate Fleet Intelligence systems if they tried to hold back any information.
No way around it then, Kara said, bringing up her carbine. I'll go first. We'll cut right and keep them between us and the hatch in case someone out there opens fire.
Velazquez, Holly said absently, having almost forgotten the man was there. We're heading in. Stay behind us, don't fire unless you see enemy coming through the access hatch from the outer corridor.
"Aye, ma'am."
Holly wished she had time to strip off the EVA suit, but making that much noise would probably attract attention. She signaled to Kara and followed her through the hatchway.
* * *
Jose Velazquez had positioned himself just behind Holly Morai, in order to be ready to step into the hatchway and back the two women up as they went inside. He had it all mapped out in his head: they would run in and he would step up smoothly behind them, just like he'd practiced in the tactical training simulators. But when they moved, it was so fast he couldn't follow it and he stumbled forward awkwardly, catching himself against the edge of the hatchway.
He tried to follow the fight, but the two of them were seemingly everywhere, especially the shorter one, Commander Morai. Major McIntire was fast, but Commander Morai was a blur, literally running up the side of the bulkhead at one point. The Tahni flechette guns were deafening in the enclosed space as the infiltrators fired wildly, and once he ducked as a stray shot ricocheted off the bulkhead only centimeters from his head. But the return fire, the characteristic flash and crack of a pulse laser weapon, was controlled, brief and efficient. Every time he heard the report, every time the air crackled and flared, one of the armored Tahni warriors went down and didn't get up.
Less than ten seconds had passed when the last of the four Tahni infiltrators slumped forward to the deck, his head tumbling off his body in what almost seemed like slow motion and rolling across the floor with a clatter of polymer and alloy from the helmet. Velazquez realized he was staring at the head with his mouth hanging open and forced himself to watch the hatchway instead, training his borrowed pistol on the entrance.
"No wonder they just sent the two of you," he muttered half to himself. He'd heard about the black ops types having augmented agents for this kind of thing, but he had never expected---or wanted---to ever see one in action.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Commander Morai yanking th
e corpse of a Tahni warrior off the main Engineering control panel and letting him crash to the floor. She pulled what looked like a computer module of some kind from her equipment belt and plugged it into one of the physical data connections on the front of the control panel, ignoring the blood streaming off the console and dripping to the floor. Velazquez wished he could ignore it as easily.
Commander Morai had barely inserted the module when they began taking fire through the hatch out to the main corridor and Velazquez dropped into a crouch instinctively. This wasn't flechette guns like the others had been armed with: the air erupted with laser pulses that spalled molten fragments off the bulkhead and reflected in sparking halos off the shielding for the superconductive main power trunk that ran through the center of the chamber.
Velazquez couldn't see much except afterimages, but he extended the pulse pistol out in front of him and squeezed off a burst of return fire through the hatch, hoping he wouldn't accidentally hit one of the agents. More laser pulses answered his shots and he fell flat on the deck as ionized air crackled above him. He risked a glance upward in time to see Kara McIntire lunging forward, not quite the blur that Holly Morai had been but still faster than any human had a right to be.
The DSI agent sailed through the door low to the ground, her pulse carbine held tightly across her chest; Velazquez hung back for a moment, expecting Holly Morai to join her, but the shorter woman was still crouched by the Engineering console, her attention focused on the computer module. Seeing that, the Security officer clambered to his feet and ran out into the corridor, ignoring the voice in the back of his head screaming at him to take cover.
He clenched his teeth, anticipating the shot that would cut him down; what happened instead was that he ran headlong into the very solid back of a Tahni warrior who'd been moving into a position in front of the hatchway. The Tahni had been aiming at something, presumably Major McIntire, but the impact jarred him enough to send the blast of laser fire into the overhead, where it blew apart a light panel with a shower of sparks. Velazquez barely managed to keep his feet, stumbling backwards from the collision with about 150 kilos and two meters of armored Tahni, but he could see the big male warrior turning to bring around his laser weapon to deal with the new threat.
