Into the Dark (Dark Universe Book 1)

by Jason Halstead

  Aden nodded. “I do.”

  “But they got a head start on us,” Meshelle countered. “Almost five hours’ worth, by the time we were in position and charged up.”

  “But we’re a little over one third their mass! We might be here ten days ahead of them.”

  “Ten days?” Meshelle gasped. “That’s impossible!”

  Aden’s grin faded as he considered her words. “Maybe not impossible, but very unlikely, I’ll give you that.”

  “You better give me more or you’ll spend the next ten weeks servicing the waste recycling units.”

  “Yuck. Um, okay. Consider this: if there was that much of a difference, we’d know about it. Somebody would have noticed it. Hasn’t every spacefaring race tried to figure these things out?”

  “So we’re back to nothing,” Meshelle said. She sighed and started to turn away.

  “No, not nothing. Something. Just my hunch. Why not try it? It can’t hurt us.”

  Meshelle glared at him for a moment and then said, “Twyf, any scans in the system yet?”

  “My sensors haven’t reported anything. Studying the system radiation levels has shown that this system is inhabited, but there aren’t any nearby ships or stations. The closest planet is Revlox-seven. There is a Criknid outpost on it, but the planet is small and frozen. It’s a listening post as much as anything.”

  “And here we are,” Meshelle muttered.

  “No comms in the black,” Aden said. “If they aren’t on that planet, then they haven’t arrived yet. Twyf, how far is the planet?”

  The Tassarian’s voice shifted as she responded to him. It wasn’t sexier, but she sounded lighter and, maybe, happier. “We could make it in about eight hours, but we’ve got a lot of power. Most ships could do it in ten to twelve.”

  “So there we go,” Aden said. “Drop back and wait seven or eight hours; then if nothing happens, we try something else.”

  Meshelle considered his suggestion for a long moment. “Janna, you mind backing up for a bit? Target optimal weapon range for our system entry point.”

  “Six hours,” Janna said. “Then we charge up and go find something else to do.”

  The head merc turned to look at Aden. “Get comfy. We’ve got a lot of standing around to do.”

  Chapter 18

  “Contact bearing five degrees by three five six degrees.” Twyf’s excited voice broke the silence almost two hours later. “Distance is twenty-seven kilometers.”

  “All weapons firing,” Janna announced. “Shuttle, you are clear to deploy.”

  “Shuttle deploying,” Seph confirmed.

  Aden and the others shifted as the shuttle’s engines fired. The limited artificial gravity wasn’t able to compensate entirely for the laws of physics, but it succeeded to the point where nobody was splattered against the rear of the shuttle.

  “Multiple hits,” Janna reported a moment later. “Two engines damaged; targeting the third. Hull damage in the aft.”

  Meshelle’s arm twitched in a victory gesture but she remained silent.

  “Third engine port out,” Janna reported next. “Hull breach confirmed. They’re venting and turning.”

  “Deploying hatch,” Seph told them. She was silent while the hatch behind Aden lowered and exposed them to the empty vacuum of space. “Shuttle maneuvers programmed in. We’ve got six three seconds to jump.”

  “Go!” Meshelle barked.

  Aden pushed with his hand and feet, ejecting himself into the void. He floated for a count of two before activating the thruster pack hooked up to his suit. He spun until he was facing the enemy ship. A faint plume of white mist melted away into the blackness from the hull puncture Janna reported.

  Janna’s reporting continued. “All engines knocked out and multiple hull strikes, but they’re starting to respond. Thrusters firing and enemy weapons engaging. We’re moving to evade and strike from a distance.”

  “Keep up the pressure,” Meshelle said. “We’ll contact when we’re ready. Boarding party out.”

  “Be careful,” Twyf slipped in before the communications from the Uma were cut.

  Aden tried not to think about Twyf’s final words. He knew they were meant for him. Well, all of them, but him in particular. He was no expert on Tassarian culture or emotions, but he knew she’d developed feelings for him. Deep feelings. Feelings he wasn’t sure he could understand given how little they knew about each other, but feelings he was also afraid he was beginning to share.

  “Mag-grapples ready,” Meshelle ordered. “Aim bottom port—that’s where the hole is.”

  Aden used the targeting scope on the grapple to guide him before he pressed the firing button. The blunt projectile launched and raced through the vacuum towards the rapidly closing starship. Aden read off the closing distance on his display and, after the gun registered a secure lock, he fired his thrusters to decelerate before he left a red smear on the hull of the enemy ship. “Locked,” he announced.

  The others responded with matching success, lifting a weight off his shoulders. The assault had been his idea and it was more than long odds: it was borderline crazy. Losing a teammate to a stupid mistake would not only lessen their chances, but it would be blood on his hands.

  He continued to vent until he hit the enemy hull hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. If the grapple gun hadn’t been attached to his suit, he would have dropped it and floated away. Aden shook his head and forced himself to act. He would worry about catching his breath later.

  He pushed away from the hull, letting out some slack from the grapple’s coil of monofilament wire, and began to drift as the enemy ship fired its thrusters to bring its weapons to bear on the Uma. He spotted the jagged steel that marked the hull breach caused by the Uma’s mass drivers and used his thrusters to fly towards it.

  Garf beat him to the hole and Tosc landed half a second after he did. Amber came up behind him. Meshelle was with Seph and helped the Tassarian hit the deck and hold position while Garf tucked some explosives into the hole and kicked himself away from the breach.

  “Five seconds!” the Devikian said.

  They backed away from the hole and waited for the flash and flames. The armor peeled outwards and glowed red for a second before the extreme cold of space cooled it. The hole went from being big enough for Aden’s head to fitting his entire body.

  “Watch the edges,” Garf grunted. “Sharp.”

  “Aden, you’ve got lead,” Meshelle ordered.

  He touched his thrusters to line up with the hole and vented them until he passed into the hole and fell forward. The gravity inside the ship slammed him into the scarred inner hull near the larger rift that led to a hallway. “I’m in,” he grunted while releasing his thruster pack and grapple. Free from restraint, he pulled himself up and through the breached inner hull.

  He surveyed the hallway while bringing his CAW to bear. To the stern, the service tunnel was a dead end. Only access panels riddled with shrapnel and glistening with frozen ice crystals waited behind. He moved up the tunnel and dropped to a crouch at the first junction on his right. He held his rifle at the ready and waited.

  “We’re in!” Meshelle said after several seconds passed.

  A tap on his left shoulder alerted him to turn. Amber was hugging the left wall of the tunnel and covering the service tunnel ahead of them while he covered the junction to their right. Meshelle stood between them and glanced down both tunnels. “Seph! Where are we going?”

  Seph was silent long enough to cause Aden’s stomach to flutter. When she spoke, her voice sounded musical in his ears. “I’m still scanning. There’s some weird interference limiting my range. It looks like this tunnel runs along the hull. Probably one on the other side too. Service tunnels. I expect there’s probably two or three junctions between them, like the one here.”

  “Great, how do we get what we came for?” Meshelle snapped.

  “I don’t know,” Seph admitted. “Fluvulis is probably someone important, right
? He’s got to have a stateroom—wouldn’t that be where it is? With him? Those are probably topside, near the bow or mid-ship on one of the sides.”

  “This isn’t a yacht and he’s not out for a pleasure cruise,” Meshelle mused. “Top center or forward. How do we get there?”

  “Best bet? Take this forward as far as we can, then a junction to a ladder or lift. We’re bound to find emergency doors in place.”

  “That’s my specialty,” Garf said with a deep chuckle.

  “Aden,” Meshelle prompted.

  Aden grunted in response and headed forward down the service tunnel. The ceiling was only seven feet and the width of the hall under five. Enough room, but snug. Two of them, in armor, wouldn’t fit side by side.

  He swept down the hall for over a hundred feet before he stopped at the next junction on his right. He dropped to a knee and covered it, pointing his assault weapon down the hall. The lack of atmosphere left him clueless where his friends were until he felt another tap on his shoulder.

  Meshelle was ready and waiting. “Seph?”

  “This is close to amidships,” she said. “A little forward. I’m reading a service lift down this tunnel.”

  “I’ve got it,” Aden agreed. “Forty-six feet on the right side.”

  “Garf, go!”

  “You got it, boss,” Garf said before he slid past her and Aden and loped down the hall on three legs. He pulled up at the lift and covered the sealed doors.

  Amber led the rest of the mercs down the hall until only Aden remained. He performed a final scan of the service hall and then joined them at the lift. Garf was hooking up explosives to the door.

  “Decompression when this goes,” he warned.

  “Not much—they’ll have another door at each level,” Aden said.

  “But will they be closed?” the Devikian asked.

  “With a hull breach? You can bet your furry ass.”

  Garf grunted.

  “The interference is a lot worse here,” Seph announced. “My scanning range is practically in single digits.”

  “Can’t you filter it out or something?” Meshelle asked.

  Seph lowered her handheld scanner and stared at Meshelle. “Sure, if you give me a few hours to analyze it.”

  Meshelle’s sigh came through their comms. “Stand back. Garf, blow it.”

  The Devikian flipped a button on the two bundles of explosive he’d stuck to the door and then pulled out a control box from his waist. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

  Aden, Tosc, and Amber dropped back on the starboard side of the lift while the other three moved to the port side. Garf triggered the explosive and cackled when the doors buckled inward and then were blown into the far wall by the air rushing out. Flames fed by the oxygen snuffed out as quick as they were ignited as the oxygen was stretched out, frozen, and sucked down the port hall and out of the breach in the hull.

  Tosc and Aden were the first two into the shaft. The lift was raised, leaving them in a shallow pit. “Clear,” Aden announced.

  “Now what?” Seph asked. “The lift is up and it’s not coming down with the damages.”

  Aden stared up at the next two levels, using the controls in his helmet to magnify the doors. “Garf, are those bulkhead doors blast shields, or just rated for pressure?”

  Garf walked in and stretched on his hind feet. He stared at them and grunted. “Just pressure doors.”

  Aden reached down. “Take cover,” he said and twisted the grenade’s control dial before lobbing it up in the air.

  “Aden!” Amber cried in disbelief.

  “Down!” Meshelle shouted.

  Aden crashed into Amber and knocked her out of the mouth of the lift. The grenade exploded behind them but the only clue they had was the shrapnel from the armor-piercing grenade that peppered the lift. A sheet of twisted and broken metal slammed into the ground and fell over as a gale of escaping air blasted out of the open lift.

  Aden and Amber rolled with the wind while the others were knocked to the floor. They clung to the ground until the rushing air thinned and stopped. “I am going to kick your ass all the way to Terra,” Amber growled.

  “Stand in line,” Meshelle spat. “That didn’t help us get up to the next level!”

  “There has to be a service ladder or something,” Seph said while climbing to her feet.

  Aden grabbed his weapon from where it fell and looked up as another metal object fell and slammed into the empty shaft floor. Aden stared at the fallen body and jerked his CAW up to point at it. “Contact!”

  “He’s dead,” Tosc said after studying the battered body. “Criknid, but the explosion must have sucked him into the wall and crushed him.”

  “He’s wearing a suit,” Meshelle noted. “That means they’re probably all wearing suits. We lost our secret weapon.”

  “That’s not all,” Aden said. He locked his weapon across his chest and stepped into the shaft to look around. He went to the corner where one of the rails the lift used protruded and he grabbed on to it. He wedged his feet against the wall and started climbing. “We’re losing our surprise.”

  “Aden! Get down!” Meshelle demanded. “We’ll find another way!”

  “No time,” Aden said. He turned his head as much as his suit would allow and stretched a leg out to place it on a horizontal lip used to reinforce the rails. He twisted back and then pushed away from the rail. He sprung off the rail and caught the edge of the deck with his fingers.

  “You’re going to get shot,” Tosc snarled. The Lermian rushed beneath him and lifted his rifle to cover the opening in the door above Aden. He didn’t have to wait long. A shadow filled it and materialized into another armored Criknid. Tosc fired three times, putting three pulses of supercharged plasma into the Criknid’s face and throat.

  Aden kicked and swung, managing to get a leg up into the opening. He pulled himself up and then jumped back through the opening towards the lift. He caught the door and swung himself around, escaping a pulse that scorched the wall behind him. The Criknid rushed into the opening and stopped when he realized he was staring down Tosc’s weapon.

  Aden grabbed the Criknid’s lower left arm and twisted the crab-like pincers away. He kicked the Criknid in the side of the knee. The insectoid alien toppled forward and fell into the base of the lift, where Amber, Garf, and Meshelle finished him off.

  He took up a position in the mouth of the shattered door, his weapon back in his hand. A few Criknids littered the hallway, either dead in their armor or knocked out. Others down the hall headed for him. He fired bursts of energy pulses at them, injuring, killing, or driving them into hiding. “Hurry up,” he growled.

  “We’re not part bird,” Amber hissed.

  “I’ll help,” Garf said and moved to stand beneath the opening. He stood on his hind legs and cupped his hands together. “Run and jump,” he said.

  Amber nodded and let the Devikian boost her up. She caught the lip and hung until Aden could lower one hand to help lift her up. Tosc followed and made sure he leapt high enough so he could climb up without Aden’s help. Meshelle and Seph came next and then finally Garf stood and stared up. He tried leaping but couldn’t come anywhere close to the distance. He turned and went to the rail, trying to recreate Aden’s memorable climb. He moved slower and fell back to the floor once, but finally managed to make it up and over to the hall.

  “Thought I was going to have to make you guard our escape,” Meshelle snapped.

  “Don’t worry, your ass is safe with me, boss,” he quipped.

  Meshelle snorted and waited until Aden, Amber, and Tosc drove the Criknids back and announced the hallway clear. “Great, two more floors,” she growled.

  Seph grunted and shook her head. She stared at the control panel she held and said, “I don’t know where to go. The interference is bad.”

  “Follow it,” Aden said.

  “Follow it? What? The interference?” Meshelle asked.

  “Yeah, that would make sense.
Seph, didn’t you say the asteroid where we found the crystal had some interference too? I bet if we found the disruption, we find the crystal.”

  Seph turned to Michele. Her boss nodded. “Try it out.”

  Seph fiddled with her instrument a few moments before she admitted, “I can’t find it, but I can tell you it’s this way. I think we’re on the right level, too.”

  Aden followed her finger that pointed out of the lift and down a hall that led towards the bow. He glanced at Meshelle. “Boss?”

  “Remind me when we get back to drive my boot up your ass,” she said.

  “Will do,” Aden lied.

  “Go!” Meshelle snarled. “We’re running out of time.”

  Chapter 19

  Aden followed Seph’s guidance and led the group down the hall. He saw two blast doors ahead, but the doors didn’t make him slow down: the turret that dropped out of the ceiling did. “A turret?” he gasped. “Who puts a turret inside a ship?”

  “People who don’t want you taking their stuff,” Amber hissed as she fumbled with her weapons.

  Aden snapped off a quick three-round burst that sent pulses of plasma into the deployed barrels of the turret. The metal sparkled and glowed from the strikes but the gun targeted him and fired. He grunted and staggered back as flashes of evaporating dust showed the passage of ionized streams of particles streaking towards him. Sensors in his helmet flashed warnings of the ion strikes against him. His armor was scorched but it held the energy at bay. Inside, he could feel the heat against his chest.

  Aden rolled, trying to dodge the repeated strikes that were raising the heat in his suit and making him sweat. The turret tracked with him, following each clumsy dodge and sending a fresh stream of ions blasting into his scarred armor.

  Amber brought her Kagra to bear and fired rocket after rocket out of the drum. After three rounds had hit the turret and exploded, she paused to see what damage she’d done. The turret was twisted and broken. One barrel hung low and the other had been split and pushed up towards the ceiling. The armor shielding around the body was bent into the weapon’s body, trapping it in place and stabbing into the delicate electronics inside that focused and heated the particles.