“Black?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” the AI said.
“Best guesses about what those are?”
Black paused for maybe half a second. “Until we are able to see KBO-1193 in greater detail, I’m unable to say with any certainty what they might be.”
He groaned. Fucking AIs and their CYA mentality. “Just guess.”
“Based on what we have already seen, I can rule out the possibility they are lifeless. I can also say with certainty they are not KBOs as we understand them. The fact the objects have changed trajectory and speed multiple times indicates some form of propulsion.”
Oakes felt a chill. “Not dumb rocks in space,” he muttered.
“No,” Black agreed. “The objects lack the traditional radiation trails indicative of nuclear propulsion. Nor do they radiate heat. The objects in question appear to be unique in the annals of astronomy and known ship design.”
“You don’t have a fucking clue,” Oakes said, more of a statement than a question. He wiped sweat from his forehead and suddenly wished he could kick the AI in its ass. If Black was feigning ignorance, she was doing a pretty good job. “Do we shoot first and ask questions later?”
“I do not consider that to be a prudent course of action,” Black said. “If they are indeed exo-solar lifeforms, it is impossible to say how they will react to direct confrontation. Since we do not know their intent, such as feeding, breeding, or congregation, rash actions such as firing our weapons might alter the reason they have for traveling to Mira. In short, they could attack when they had no reason to.”
No reason to. Shit. Oakes pined for the Satellite War, a conflict where any ship, any skiff, and any meatball in a suit could be the enemy in disguise. That he could understand. But this? There were no ships. There were no known engines involved, or at least by known technological standards. These were something new. Something potentially deadly.
S&R Black’s weapons arrays were locked and loaded. All they needed now was a target. Oakes hoped his astrogation plan worked. If not, they would have a hell of a time getting out of here without losing both Taulbee and Copenhaver. Not to mention Kalimura’s squad. Shit, he thought, if we fuck up, none of us are going home.
Chapter Thirty-Six
It had been a long damned time since he had a gunner behind him. In fact, the last time he flew with a gunner had been during the Satellite War and that was several years in the past. But even then, he hadn’t liked having someone behind him, having to communicate with them, and having his concentration wrecked by a green marine’s bombardment of questions or absurdly inaccurate callouts of enemy positions. In short, Taulbee enjoyed flying alone.
After the meeting with Gunny and the captain, he’d immediately downed another hydration pouch, urinated, and suited back up. By the time he reached the cargo bay, Copenhaver stood next to the SV-52, her gear already packed in the cockpit. She saluted him as he approached. He returned it with a grin.
“Are you ready for this, Private?”
“Aye, sir,” she said, her face on the verge of a smile. Copenhaver was one of those people who even when she was doing her best to show respect and hold a professional countenance, her speech held a special kind of levity. It was just another part of her personality he liked. She was going to make a hell of a non-com one day.
“You flown in the back before?”
“No, sir,” she said. “Only in simulations.”
“You’ll be fine,” Taulbee said. “Just follow my lead, check the feeds, and kill anything that’s not human. Unless, of course, I tell you not to.”
“Aye, sir.”
He swiveled his head and saw three figures standing near the emergency airlock. Murdock and Wendt had already suited up for their EVA. Gunny stood with them, checking their suits and speaking in a low voice. Although he couldn’t hear what he was saying, Taulbee was fairly certain it was Gunny’s special brand of pep talk. Which usually amounted to “Don’t be stupid, don’t get dead. Get the job done.”
“Or I’ll kick your ass,” Taulbee muttered with a chuckle.
“Sir?” Copenhaver asked. He looked back at her and nearly laughed at the confused expression on her face.
“Nothing, Copenhaver. Let’s get this bird ready to fly.”
He scrambled into the cockpit and waited while Copenhaver did the same. Once in the pilot seat, his nerves began to calm at once. He activated the mag harness and his suit became flush with the seat, immobilizing his body with the exception of his head, arms, and feet. Taulbee connected his block to the SV-52 and his HUD filled with instrument readings. He initiated the startup sequence and watched the status markers turn from red to yellow to green. Although he trusted Gunny’s word that the craft had been refueled and reloaded, he checked anyway. Sure enough, the SV-52 was ready for action.
“Copenhaver?”
“Aye, sir. Bringing up my HUD now.”
The last status indicator turned green. His gunner was connected and had munitions under her control. He took in a slow breath and exhaled in one long stream. “Closing cockpit.”
“Acknowledged,” she said.
Taulbee sent the command and the armored cockpit shell slowly descended. The words “Cabin Pressurized” flashed twice across his HUD before disappearing. He activated the craft’s feeds and placed them in the lower right of the virtual display.
“You ready, Copenhaver?”
“Aye, sir.”
Taulbee initiated the comms. “Captain? We are ready to depart.”
“Acknowledged,” Dunn said. “Good hunting.”
“Thank you, sir. Gunny?”
“We’re in the airlock, pressurized and ready. Just let me know when I should kick my boys out the door.”
Taulbee smiled. “Aye, Gunny. Opening cargo bay.” The SV-52 trembled slightly as the atmosphere vented back into the life-support tanks, leaving the cargo bay in a vacuum. Another warning flashed across his HUD just before the wall in front of him opened.
He deactivated the SV-52’s magnetics. “Taulbee departing.”
“Acknowledged,” Dunn said.
“Okay, Copenhaver. Easy ride out of the barn,” Taulbee said.
“Aye, sir,” she replied.
He thought she’d sound concerned, worried about the flight or her duties. Instead, she sounded excited. That was a good sign. Smiling, Taulbee engaged the rear thrusters and the craft moved forward into the twilight of space.
Once clear of the cargo bay, Taulbee descended until the SV-52 hovered just above Mira’s hull. “Start looking, Copenhaver. I want to make sure there’s nothing out here.”
“Aye, sir.”
She would do her job, he was sure of it, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t checking the same cam feeds. While she used the more capable cannon cameras, he was left with the SV-52’s standard cam feeds. Taulbee minimized the instrumentation views and brought the four cam feeds up in a rectangle. The starboard cam displayed a view of S&R Black’s lower hull and the corner of the spindle. Up top? Twinkling starlight breaking through the Kuiper Belt’s twilight shroud. He paused to admire the view for a few seconds before returning his attention to the other feeds. The port view was the worrisome one. Not fifty meters away, and not more than half an hour ago, he’d been fighting for his life, and the life of his marines, in that very spot. Private Lyke was now dead because he couldn’t stop the starfish thing in time.
When Copenhaver’s voice broke through the comms, he flinched in surprise. “Sir? Bogeys near Mira’s aft.”
He flipped back to the forward cam, but couldn’t see anything moving. “How far?”
“Nearly five hundred meters out,” she said. “Isn’t that where we’re headed?”
“Ultimately,” he said. “Pinecones?”
“Aye, sir,” she said. “At least I think they are. They’re clumped together in thick blobs. Cams don’t have enough magnification to show much detail.”
“No,” he agreed. “They don’t. Not enough for my liking anyway. Okay. We’re
moving. We’ll take a little tour to the other side of Black and take a peek.”
“Acknowledged, sir,” she said.
As he piloted the craft around S&R Black’s aft portion, he kept glancing through the feeds looking for movement. Finally, he caught a glimpse of what Copenhaver had seen. It was barely noticeable from this distance and without magnification, but dots of black, darker than space, seemed to move out there. He shuddered at the thought of flying into another pack of the creatures. Especially since last time there hadn’t been hundreds of them.
That was perhaps the worst part of this little mission. Keeping the memories of the two starfish attacks out of his mind was a chore. Not to mention hordes of bulbous pinecone-like things pinging off the hull like metal rain. He felt his stomach tightening into knots and tried to focus again on the front cam. Copenhaver has the rest covered, he told himself. Just pilot the damned bird.
Using a few thruster burns, he moved forward at 2m/s before rotating the SV-52 to face S&R Black’s port-side. When he had enough room, he touched the thrusters again and brought the SV-52 back to the spindle. He chanced a quick glance at the feed and saw the spindle. No pinecones. No starfish. No visible threats.
He loosed a sigh. “Copenhaver?”
“All clear, sir. No bogeys out here.” She took in a deep breath. “At least none that I can see.”
“Roger that,” Taulbee said. He made a connection to the ship. “Captain? Gunny? We’re clear for now.”
“Aye,” Dunn said. “Gunny? Whenever you’re ready.”
“Aye, sir,” Gunny said. “They’re starting their EVA now.”
Taulbee descended until the SV-52 hovered just above the hull. According to the instruments, they were less than 200cm away from the derelict’s damaged hull plates.
He adjusted the SV-52’s exterior lights to maximum and the powerful floods illuminated the spindle and its fittings as though they were in full sunlight. From here, he and Copenhaver could watch every move Gunny’s marines made. If there was a problem, they’d know it right away.
He tried to keep his heart rate down, but it was damned difficult. If they were worried about human saboteurs or an ambush, coming up with a strategy was easy—you just picked them off as they egressed from their hiding spot. A few flechette rounds, and it was all over. With these damned things? Well, the flechette blasts necessary to disperse a herd of pinecones or destroy one of the starfish was likely to blow the two marines to pieces.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The airlock opened and space greeted them. The last of the atmosphere inside the airlock vented away, the sudden change of pressure vibrating his suit. Gunny closed his eyes for half a beat as he waited for the rush of vertigo to depart. When he opened them, his stomach immediately quieted and he no longer felt as though he were falling.
S&R Black’s floodlights illuminated the deck plates well enough for him to see the cracks and fissures striated through the Atmo-steel surface. He hissed a sigh and activated the comms.
“Wendt? Murdock? Ready?”
“Aye, Gunny,” Wendt said. “We got this.”
“Aye, Gunny,” Murdock stammered.
Gunny pulled a tether lead from the wall and attached it to Wendt, and clipped another to Murdock while he spoke. “Take it slow. Be careful. And get it done right.” Neither of the marines replied. “Wendt? You see anything move that’s not Murdock, shoot it. And then get your asses back here.”
“Aye, Gunny,” Wendt said again, a little more forcefully.
Gunny clapped Murdock on the back. “If the shit goes down, I’ll be right there.”
“Aye,” Murdock said in a terrified, shaking voice.
“Get to it, marines,” Gunny said.
“Follow me, Murdock,” Wendt said and pushed himself out of the airlock.
The pair floated into space, the tether lines snaking out behind them in loose arcs as they gained distance from the ship. Wendt fired his suit thrusters and descended out of sight and to Mira’s hull. A second later and Murdock did the same.
Gunny activated the cam feeds from his marines and brought them up on his HUD. The views spun as the two men oriented themselves to the spindle. Murdock mag-walked in a jerky, halting series of steps, his camera view making Gunny sick to his stomach. He ignored it and focused on Wendt’s more smooth, seasoned gait. When they reached the spindle, Wendt turned and faced away while Murdock began releasing the lines.
Gunny absently grabbed another tether lead and attached it to his own suit. With the same sense of autonomic routine, he pulled the flechette rifle from his back and gripped it in both hands. The firm metal felt reassuring somehow and made his fingers stop twitching with nervous tension.
The task of unhooking the spindle should only take a few minutes, he thought. Even less if they had two marines to do the job, but that would have required another marine to provide cover and he simply didn’t have the numbers for that. Not without tasking another member of the command crew. Considering Nobel had a fractured leg, Oakes had to fly the damned ship, and Dunn was the captain and strictly forbidden from leaving the ship unless there was an emergency, they had to make do.
He knew Dunn was suited up and waiting outside the cargo bay hatch leading into the rest of the ship. The captain would come out here and save asses if necessary. Hell, even Nobel would gimp his way out if they needed him. Gunny just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
No. What he really needed? What he really wanted? He wanted Kalimura, Dickerson, Carbonaro, and Elliott standing on deck. He wanted to hear the corporal snapping at her marines, her clipped voice taking no shit and barking orders as though she were born for the job. That’s what he wanted. Gunny glanced at his helmet cam and looked across Mira’s vast exterior. Somewhere beneath all that metal, and two decades of humanity’s labor, her squad was either alive or dead. They were either trying to find a way out of the hulk, or they’d been eaten by the pinecones or the starfish or void knew what else lurking within the derelict’s walls. Just a few more bodies in the floating tomb.
He shook the thought away. Those four marines deserved the benefit of the doubt. They were still alive an hour ago, and they’d still be alive now. He just had to wait until they found their way to the escape pods and left the wretched hunk of metal. A meager grin appeared on his face. She’d lead them out. Somehow.
Something moved at the edge of his vision and the grin disappeared at once. He sent a block command and the cam zoomed in as far as it could go. Beyond the edge of Mira’s hull, several shapes floated in the darkness like nearly invisible spirits. He frowned and watched them for a full ten seconds before realizing they weren’t actually near Mira at all. They were much further away than that, but they were moving toward the ship. And that meant toward S&R Black.
“Black? You seeing this?” Gunny said.
“Yes, Sergeant,” the AI responded.
“Well? What are they?”
“They are the KBOs the captain showed you earlier. They are much closer now.”
“How is that possible?” Gunny asked. “I thought they were still a while away? They increase their speed?”
“No, Sergeant,” Black said. “Not even Mickey’s extensive array of telescopes and sensors are powerful enough to track every object near us. It appears these were much closer than anticipated.”
Gunny’s skin popped with gooseflesh. “How close are they?”
“Unknown,” Black said. “My sensors are unable to determine their proximity. I estimate no more than twenty kilos in distance.”
“What do you mean your sensors can’t determine that?” Gunny snapped.
Black paused for a beat. “Lt. Oakes has just confirmed the objects are emitting some form of EMR that is disrupting our sensory arrays,” Black said. “If that is the case, it’s likely they have been near us for hours. Although they now appear to be traveling toward us at unknown velocities.”
“Fuck,” Gunny whispered. In the dim twilight of the Kuiper Belt, the shap
es appeared as little more than shimmering, amorphous blobs. If they weren’t scattering and eclipsing the light of distant stars, he might not have noticed them at all. “Captain?”
“Aye, Gunny,” Dunn said. “Black and Oakes have filled me in. Let’s get off this damned hulk ASAP.”
“Copy that, sir,” Gunny said. He brought back the feeds from Wendt and Murdock. The younger of the two marines was still futzing around with the cable assemblies, his arms occasionally pinwheeling as he lost traction rotating the release wheels. Apparently, he was as bad with his hands as he was with his boots. “Void sake,” Gunny said to himself. “Should have sent a damned chimp out there.”
Wendt’s feed showed more of Mira’s hull, as though the man were standing on a vast cliff of pitted, distressed metal. The marine slowly walked in a circle, his back to the spindle and Murdock. Wendt, Gunny noticed, took his sentry duty pretty damned seriously. The motion paused every few seconds as Wendt scanned the area before him. Black was no doubt doing the same with her external cams. Between the two of them, he was confident they’d see a threat long before it had a chance to endanger either the ship or Murdock.
Gunny was about to ask how much longer when a low vibration shook the ship. Mag-locked on the airlock’s deck, his body didn’t move, but the rumble in his boots traveled up his spine and rattled his brain. It lasted no more than a few seconds, but it still scared the hell out of him.
“Black? What the hell was that?” Gunny asked.
“Unknown,” Black said. “The vibration through the Atmo-steel surface was analogous to a seismic event. It is possible a portion of Mira’s interior has collapsed.”
“Out-fucking-standing,” Gunny growled. Kalimura’s squad was still inside there while the void-damned ship collapsed around them. “Murdock. What’s the status?”
“Almost there, Gunny,” Murdock said in a breathy whisper. “Two more to go.”
He opened his mouth to yell at the young marine and then closed it. Shouting at the kid wasn’t going to make him move any faster. It sure as shit wasn’t going to calm him down either. If anything, barking at Murdock would just make things worse.”
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