“What the hell happened?” Mach said.
“Gimme a second.”
Adira fired her laser and a red beam stabbed across the fighter bay. She dropped by Mach’s side, briefly glanced at his leg and rose again, hovering over the fighter’s domed cockpit with her laser raised.
Mach winced and drifted to her side. “What are we up against?”
“Not sure. A thin silver cable whipped from behind a fighter. It rolled back like a huge robotic tentacle.”
“Whatever it is, we need to take it out. The clock’s ticking.”
He dropped lower and peered along the ground underneath the fighter. Something glinted ahead. A dim light rushed toward him. Mach thrust up and felt a sharp pain in his hip.
A silver cable shot ten meters past him and retreated with the same rapid speed, back underneath the row of fighters. Mach pressed his glove against his hip and looked at the blood streaked across his fingers.
“Damn it,” Mach said.
Adira fired her laser and shouted, “Fire, Mach. Fire!”
Light spread across the high metallic red ceiling. A three-meter-wide spinning bright blue star moved across it toward them. Five cables attached to each point. All snapped in Mach’s direction.
***
Babcock glanced to his left, making sure Squid was by his side. If they were to hack the core, stop the boot sequence and gain control of the ship, it would require their teamwork. Sanchez descended ahead of him. The burly gun-runner’s two lights punched into the dusty gloom of the shaft.
They came up against a dead end.
“The map looked like a continuous route,” Babcock said.
Sanchez searched around the space. He pressed his gloved hand against a series of five pressure pads.
A section of the wall to their side rumbled, vibrated and slid to one side. Bright light flooded the shaft from a smooth white five-meter-wide corridor leading to another dead end. The light blue lines crossing the ceiling gave it the appearance of a huge circuit board.
A loud groan murmured ahead. Not infrastructure straining under the pressure of the damage inflicted by the cannon. This had a living sound. Sanchez paused and pressed himself against the wall.
“You ready for this?” Sanchez asked.
“We haven’t got a choice,” Babcock said. They did, but running would mean all of their deaths, and the people of Larunda. He wasn’t a fighter, but there were exceptions to nearly every rule. “Lead the way. Squid and I will be right behind you.”
Sanchez nodded, spun and thrust forward.
Three metallic clanks came from somewhere below. The corridor shuddered. Babcock checked his smart-screen. They had less than ten minutes before the Atlantis ship’s systems restarted. He studied the map of the ship and realized they were right on top of the core.
“There’s another shaft at the end,” Babcock said. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
Another deep undulating moan echoed from below. Babcock wondered how it was even possible, as they were still in an unpressurized environment, and glanced around the walls.
“Sounds like we’ll have company,” Sanchez said. “Stay close. You’re the one who needs to stay alive if the shit hits the fan.”
The solid white wall at the end punched to one side and slammed open. The corridor jolted, knocking Sanchez, Babcock and Squid against the wall.
Babcock panicked, thrust and hit the ceiling. Squid hung below him. He twisted and looked toward the open entrance ahead.
A chrome trapezoid, with two whirring arms on either side, shot out of the dark space. It headed directly at them and scraped along the wall, tearing a jagged gouge through the white material as it advanced.
Sanchez hunched and repeatedly fired.
Babcock fumbled with the laser’s controls with his trembling hand. He aimed down and fired. His beam hit the floor, creating a black smoldering dent.
Sanchez ducked to one side.
The trapezoid passed directly between them, smashing into Squid. It came to an abrupt halt and its arms, in a spinning blur, smashed Babcock’s little AI friend into hundreds of pieces.
Babcock gritted his teeth. His hand steadied and he fired down. Sanchez’s laser struck the underside of the trapezoid. They both kept their fingers on their triggers, draining the charge of their weapons.
Thin wisps of smoke drifted from the trapezoid and its arms slowed to limp shiny rods. It drifted lifelessly to one side and clanked against the wall. Pieces of Squid floated past Babcock’s visor and his heart sank. His favorite partner for the last decade had been destroyed in a heartbeat.
“Switch on,” Sanchez said. “There’ll be time to mourn Squid.”
“Without him, it’s gonna be a whole lot harder.”
“I know, but as harsh as it sounds, you need to forget it… him. We’ve got a mission to complete.”
Babcock took a last glance at the smashed circuitry and wires he had lovingly constructed into a friend. The task became doubly difficult without Squid’s assistance, but he would complete it in his honor. The Atlantis ship had made it personal. “Lead the way, Sanchez. The tartaruns are going to regret the day they crossed Kingsley Babcock.”
Sanchez thrust forward. Babcock checked the charge on his laser. He still had four seconds of shot left.
A shaft led down at the end of the corridor. The maps so far had proven correct, and this was their final descent. Sanchez didn’t waste any time heading down. As Babcock followed him, descending into the gloom, he feared they might not have enough time.
***
Mach thrust to his side, keeping his finger on the accelerate button. He shot across the bay and smashed into the solid wall. His leg and hip throbbed and droplets of blood drifted in his wake. The star’s cables thudded against the ground, sending debris and space dust floating in the air.
Adira split in the opposite direction. She scrambled under the body of the second fighter in the row of ten on the opposite side of the bay.
The brilliant blue star zipped in her direction and snapped its glinting cables down, sending up a plume of gray mist.
“Adira?” Mach said.
“Close call. Do something!”
Mach leaned forward, raised his laser and thrust forward. He’d faced worse than this, but the thought of Adira being attacked motivated him in a way that he hadn’t felt before.
Thick gray dust shrouded the whole bay. The lights on the ceiling glared through the dusty haze.
A thin blue glow punctuated the gloom. Snapping noises cracked through Mach’s earpiece as the machine continued to attack Adira.
“Still alive?” Mach asked.
The beam of Adira’s laser shot up, hitting the ceiling at multiple points as she fired in different directions. Mach advanced further forward, toward the light blue star, and swept his visor clean.
Stiff-lined arms crackled with electricity and snapped down toward Adira. Mach fired, sending his thin red shot directly into the machine’s central body.
The machine struck the fighter again, splitting it down the middle. Sparks momentarily fizzled around the wreck. Mack spotted Adira roll under the next craft. He raised his laser and fired at the star. It turned its focus on him. A cable whipped over his shoulder and smacked into the wall. Shrapnel peppered his suit. One shard punctured his chest, sending Mach spinning against the tartarun droid, and he took a deep breath before crashing against one of the mechanical legs.
Both lungs drew in air from the life support pack. Just a cracked rib, Mach guessed. He glanced at his smart-screen. Three minutes before the ship restarted its systems. Without word from Sanchez and Babcock, he felt it was down to him and Adira. They needed to reach the bridge.
Adira rose behind the machine and fired. Her beam ricocheted off the body, but its cables drooped. Mach ascended, breathing heavily and feeling faint. He fired his last charge and thrust toward the ceiling.
The star slowed on its axis and plummeted. It hit the floor and tumbled to a skidding s
top below them.
“Go now,” Adira said. “Before that thing recovers.”
Mach felt momentarily disorientated. He gripped his side to stem the blood flow and surveyed the area. The blue star had lost most of its effervescence, dimming the bay. A shaft led up at the far end. He leaned forward and powered toward it.
Adira drifted up from the dust-clouded floor.
“Are you okay?” Mach said, looking at a gouge on the arm of Adira’s suit.
“I’ll live. Lead the way,” Adira said. “I’m on five percent laser.”
“Let’s hope we don’t come across another.” Mach checked the reading on his weapon. “I’m out.”
The five-meter-wide shaft rose toward black star-studded space. It had to be the bridge. The Atlantis ship didn’t have an open structure.
Mach shot up twenty meters into an open space. A thick glass dome spread around the top half of the area. An oversized dark gray console stretched around the front half of the room. Hundreds of pink and orange lights winked on it.
Twenty screens flickered against the back wall, strobing the area. Small rods and buttons spread across a smaller console below it.
“Recognize anything that’s weapon or navigation related?” Adira asked.
Mach frowned and surveyed both consoles. “Navigation at the front and weapons at the back… probably. We’ll have a small window if Babcock fails to stop the Atlantis booting.”
“So we just wait?”
“We can try now, but it might not do any good. Let’s just pray Babcock and Squid do the business.”
The ship groaned and spun. Larunda came into view and they were heading directly for it.
***
Babcock followed Sanchez into a cavernous space. Four tall light green blocks, three stories high, sat in a row in the center of the room, casting an eerie glow. To the left, red symbols streamed across two large screens.
“That might be the restart sequence,” Babcock said and glanced at his smart-screen. They had two minutes. He thrust immediately toward a glowing control pad below the screens.
A dark figure shot across the ceiling. Thirty small marble-sized blue orbs sprayed in their direction. One struck Babcock’s leg. He looked down and screamed. His suit had instantly melted at the impact spot and the orb burned into his thigh.
Sanchez clutched the right side of his stomach and gasped through the intercom. “Leave this to me, Babcock. You do your thing.”
Babcock winced and drifted across the console. A red light flashed against the wall above him. Sanchez’s laser firing. He tried to ignore the searing pain and focused ahead.
The controls had symbols he’d seen somewhere before. Beringer’s ancient cave painting of the Atlantis ship. They had attempted to decrypt it years ago, but didn’t have enough data to complete a translation.
A bar was rising on the left side of the screen, over three-quarters of the way to the top. Babcock guessed it measured the progress of the system restart. He captured the streaming data and controls on his smart-screen and ran them through his recognition software. This had all known universal code and would hopefully translate enough to enable him to stop the ship becoming operational again.
“I’m hit,” Sanchez’s voice crackled. “I’m heading to the other side of the core to draw the damned thing away.”
A blue orb shot over Babcock’s head and hit the edge of the left screen, creating a smoldering hole. He instinctively ducked and raised his trembling wrist. The timer he’d started on the Intrepid had reduced to fifty-nine seconds.
The Atlantis ship’s superstructure let out a metallic scream. A laser blast shot across the ceiling. Babcock’s smart-screen worked on the code but hadn’t produced a response. He pressed the controls, hoping something would happen.
Lights thumped on across the ceiling, bathing the area in bright light. The bar reached the top and the four tall blocks behind him whirred.
“I think I’ve taken it out,” Sanchez said. “How are you getting on?”
Babcock pushed away from the controls and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “It’s too late. I can’t stop it.”
***
The screens on the bridge flickered to solid, displaying outside images of Larunda, the ship’s tartarun-built cannon pivoting around, and a three-dimensional radar display. Mach forced his eyes open, refusing to lose consciousness. Deep blue holocontrols rose from the front console. Green ones rose from the panel at the back of the bridge.
“You try the weapons,” Mach said. “I’ll try the navigation.”
Adira thrust below the screens and floated above the controls. Mach turned and headed for the oversized console at the front. There had to be some recognizable logic to their operation.
Through the glass dome, Larunda was less than a klick away, and they were closing fast. Mach placed his gloves around the large sphere in front of him and spun it. Nothing looked obvious, but they had to try something.
“Oh shit,” Adira said. “I don’t know what I’ve done, but the cannon’s gonna fire.”
Mach glanced over his shoulder. On the central screen above Adira, a bright light glared from the cannon’s mouth. He’d seen this before on smaller ion cannons. It only meant one thing. The weapon was primed and would fire at any moment.
He spun the sphere and pressed the symbols. The ship powered forward and Larunda loomed larger ahead. They were seconds from impact.
“Do something, Mach,” Adira shouted. “Nothing I’m doing is working.”
Mach took a deep breath. He spun the sphere and hit another group of symbols, hoping it wouldn’t trigger the cannon or thrust faster toward the orbital.
The view outside twisted as the ship went into a roll. They headed to the right of Larunda but were still in danger of a collision.
A blue light flashed above the glass dome and zipped toward the edge of Larunda. It smashed into a defense platform on the edge, sending debris in all directions. At least it hadn’t hit the main target, but they were still on course.
Mach hit the symbols again and took a deep breath. He raised his gloved hand over his visor as they drifted within meters of Larunda.
The Atlantis ship’s superstructure screamed as it scraped along the side of the orbital. Mach and Adira were both thrown to the side of the bridge and smashed against the wall. He couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer and felt himself bump against the ceiling as a distant alarm pulsed.
A voice echoed through Mach’s intercom, but he couldn’t respond.
***
Babcock regained his composure after being forced away from the controls after the force of the impact. Two of the core towers died, their block structures turning from light green to gray. CWDF and private contacts appeared on his smart-screen. They had comms back and he hoped it wasn’t too late.
Sanchez appeared at his side. Blood spattered the internal left-hand side of his helmet and his left arm hung limply by his side. “What the hell was that?”
“No idea,” Babcock said. “But I’ve got contact with the space relays and I’m sending the information to Beringer. If there’s one man who can crack this, it’s him.”
“Sanchez, Babcock,” Adira said through the intercom. “How’s it going down there?”
“Haven’t cracked it yet,” Babcock said. “Do we still have Larunda?”
“Yep. We’re drifting at the moment. I’m trying to work out the controls.”
“What about the cannon?” Sanchez asked.
“It’s not priming at the moment. We’re heading away from the orbital, so I’m not trying anything stupid.”
“Is Mach there?”
No immediate reply came. Babcock swallowed hard and bowed his head.
“He’s out cold,” Adira replied. “His screen shows a weak pulse, but he’s still with us. We need to gain control and find medical assistance.”
Sanchez groaned. “He’s not the only one.”
Babcock’s smart-screen vibrated. A message
from Beringer. He knew his old friend would be online and this was the subject that Beringer had studied for years. With the pressure off and a code to crack, together they would reel this thing in. For Squid, Mach, Sanchez, Adira and the Commonwealth.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mach exhaled a long slow breath, misting the window of his gloss-white medical room. A bed took up most of the space, with a cabinet and a dresser sitting opposite. A smart-screen attached to the wall showed graphs and charts of his condition.
He looked up at it, pleased to see his heart beat in the normal range. For the previous four days as he recovered, his pulse had been erratic. He shifted his gaze back to the viewport and watched hundreds of engineers and drones inspect the docked Atlantis ship. It had taken two full days for them to drag it into Larunda’s outboard hangar bay, and even then the ship’s colossal size required an EM-tether, its bulk too large to reside within the bay completely.
Fragments of the LDP still drifted by like an asteroid belt. He was glad the CW had changed it to an unmanned defense platform the year before; a thousand individuals usually populated them.
Images of the alien ship still flashed in his mind, as did the screams of his crew during the fight. But they’d done it. They’d finally captured the Atlantis ship, proved it wasn’t a myth. It was nothing more than an extremely powerful ancient warship belonging to a long-lost alien race.
He had wondered about them over the last two days it took for his body to heal. Where were they? What happened to them? The CW would no doubt have the best minds crawling all over it, picking together the story of its origins and makers. Theo Beringer would no doubt make this his life’s work.
Below the frenzied activity surrounding the prize sat his ship, the Intrepid. Even with the damage it had sustained, it still evoked a sense of pride and passion within him. Without that ship, and ironically, the sabotaged weapon the tartaruns had installed, there was no way they could have stopped the Atlantis ship.
Carson Mach 1: The Atlantis Ship Page 24
