Derelict_Destruction

by Paul E. Cooley

  He quickly spun the SV-52 and pointed it toward the aft section. “Copenhaver?”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Get ready. This may get a little—”

  His voice broke off in mid-sentence as the world before him exploded with light. While his HUD filtered the damaging short wavelengths from his eyes, he still felt as though someone had teleported a damned star into his lightless, state room coffin. A white flash, so powerful it seemed solid rather than ephemeral, blasted from the aft wreckage. It wasn’t a beam. It was a goddamned supernova contained in a wide, irregularly shaped explosion of energy.

  The afterimage inked on his corneas stayed there for a moment, leaving him blinking even through the HUD’s virtual cam feeds. A number of warning icons and alerts blinked and pulsed across his vision.

  “Copenhaver?”

  “Here, sir. I’m alive and not blind.”

  “Good,” Taulbee said. “Check the telemetry. The probe have anything interesting to say before it died?”

  “Hang on, sir.”

  The seconds ticked off. The blast was gone now, but he could still see trails of its existence as though a smear of whitish-yellow had been painted across a field of utter black. What the fuck was that?

  “Sir?” she said. “I think you better look at it yourself.”

  Taulbee raised an eyebrow. Copenhaver’s voice held that sound again. She was terrified, but curious. Suddenly, he didn’t want to know. But he had to just the same.

  He shuffled aside the cam views, minimizing them as well as the standard SV-52 readouts into a corner and filled his HUD with the probe’s data. His block took a moment to make sense of the data stream and then his jaw dropped.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Dunn had sat riveted before the holo display as the SV-52 approached Mira’s aft section. Although he hadn’t been exerting himself, hadn’t been in the pilot seat of the relatively tiny craft, his heart rate had steadily risen. He did feel fear, and it wasn’t the terror a commander sometimes experienced upon sending their marines into danger. No. This was personal. This fear rattled his bones and struck pangs of ice through his skull. This fear was that of the unknown, of the alien, of reality slowly coming apart.

  As the cam feed had given way to that of the nanoprobe, his mind completely cleared of all thought. He’d allowed himself to float into the terrifying images of the pulsating lights, Mira’s shattered superstructure, and the slithering shadows. Taulbee’s and Copenhaver’s comms chatter faded into a distant whisper of meaningless noise as he experienced every image from the nanoprobe as though he were riding it into the alien maelstrom.

  He’d been aware that Taulbee was moving the SV-52 out of harm’s way, but it didn’t pull his consciousness away from the rolling movie in his mind. The nanoprobe had continued forward, its small, powerful cone of light stabbing through the shadows, illuminating impossibly black limbs waving in the vacuum. But the light began to fade, visibility decreasing as something he couldn’t see swallowed it. No, he couldn’t see it, but it was something he thought he could nearly feel. A presence. Or something humans didn’t even have a word for.

  When the light completely disappeared and the cam feed became nothing more than a pane of absolute darkness, something hitched inside his mind and brought him back to the present. He was still sitting in the command chair, his hands gripping the armrests so tightly that his fingers throbbed. A moment later, the world was brighter than he’d dreamed possible.

  For just an instant, a quanta of second, the darkness transformed into a flash so bright that he thought he’d been dropped into Sol. His body prickled with something like goose flesh, but there was no cold, no sensation of ice being poured down his back. Instead, it was like sitting next to a fusion engine blasting an inferno of hot plasma into a tightly enclosed space.

  And then the feed was nothing more than static with an alert flashing across his HUD: “Signal Terminated.”

  After a moment, he realized he was shaking with excitement, heart pounding hard enough in his chest to make him shudder. Oakes’ voice pulled him from the fugue.

  “Void wept. What the hell was that?” Dunn pushed away from his block connection and re-engaged with reality. Oakes had turned in his chair to face him. “Sir?”

  Dunn took a deep breath and commanded, no, demanded, his heart slow its rapid beat. When he felt he could speak without sounding like an asthmatic, he cleared his throat and exhaled. “I don’t know. Black?”

  The AI was silent for a moment. “My sensors have detected another massive photon burst. After the last such pulse, I adjusted the instruments to filter out known EMR types and look for anomalous readings. This latest emission appears to have produced a number of previously unknown quantum particles.”

  Dunn blinked. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Captain,” Black said, “we already know that Mira’s lifeforms defy our knowledge of biology and physics. This is more of the same. Whatever wave the beacon produces appears to create elements and particles I can detect, but not analyze. The power stored in the beacon must be immense, although how it is creating such a wave from such a seemingly small power source is beyond my understanding.”

  Beyond my understanding. Yeah, that sounded about right. The most intelligent sentient on the mission was telling him it didn’t have a fucking clue. He shivered.

  “What about the other things?” Oakes asked. “Those, I don’t know, those shapes moving in the shadows?”

  “I’ve already analyzed the feed and applied a number of filters.”

  The bridge holo display cleared and a number of still images floated in place of sensor readings and a model of Mira. Dunn gazed at the images for a moment before his eyebrows knit together of their own accord.

  The first image showed a piece of Atmo-steel, twisted and bent at an impossible angle, its surface glowing green and white. A long, wide, tapered appendage wrapped around the metal like a healthy ivy vine strangling a tree limb. The appendage’s surface shimmered in smears of eerie yellows and blues.

  “Is that a starfish limb?” Dunn asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Black said. “Based on observational data, the proportions are not correct. This ‘limb,’ as you call it, is much wider than the exo-solar lifeforms we have thus far encountered. Not only that, but as you can see, it appears to be covered in an analog to scales. But if you look at the next image,” Black said as the holo display popped another image to the foreground, “you can see the hint of a rectangular base that the limb is attached to.”

  After a moment, he saw what Black was talking about. While the first image displayed an appendage wrapped around a beam of Atmo-steel, the second image showed the edge of the creature’s “base.” It didn’t look right. It didn’t even look organic. Dunn harrumphed to himself. None of it looked “organic.” But this looked more machine-like than what they’d come across before.

  “Then what is it?” Dunn asked.

  “Unknown,” Black said.

  Another image appeared. In the distance, something glowed bright white. The source was little more than a dot, but it was powerful enough to shred the image quality in the area. Instead of the dark, tangled nest of shadows, the tiny light cast enough brightness to display a monstrous horde of backlit, moving shapes.

  Hundreds, no, thousands of creatures of different sizes crowded the area. Countless appendages, starfish bodies, pinecones, and other creatures he didn’t recognize, crowded the area like a swarm.

  “Void wept,” Dunn said. “How many are there?”

  “My estimates are over 2,000,” Black said. “The exo-solar lifeforms, including varieties we have yet to encounter, appear to be congregating near the beacon.”

  “What’s that pinpoint of light?” Oakes asked.

  “That,” Black said, “is the beacon a few nanoseconds before it emitted the latest EMR pulse.”

  Dunn’s mind spun. More creatures than they’d thought possible are inside Mira’s aft section? �
��Are they spawning?” he asked in a robotic voice.

  Black paused. “I cannot say for certain,” the AI said. “However, I predict a 72% chance that is the case. It would certainly explain the large number of creatures Lieutenant Taulbee saw on the hull. If they are reproducing, they are doing so at a nearly geometric rate.”

  “Void, Captain,” Oakes said. “How the hell are we supposed to get to the beacon?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Oakes,” he said. Dunn fought back another shiver. Even if he had a full company of marines decked to the nines with the latest combat gear, functional skiffs, and five or six support craft, there was no way to get in there. No way they could possibly survive in that swarm of alien creatures.

  Weapons. The Trio had given them weapons. Some were lethal to humans, some non-lethal. Apart from the tritium flechettes, the others scared the hell out of him. The Trio had sent helpful instructions and warnings every step of the mission. Their pronouncements had confused him, terrified him, and given him hope all at the same time. But could he really trust them? Assuming they had given him the tools to succeed, the exotic weaponry was surely the answer. But did he dare to trust them after all this? After they had had something to do with Mira’s near destruction and the deaths of the human crew? Could he?

  “Black. Do you think the Trio knew this was going to happen? Are the weapons part of their plan?”

  “I believe the Trio knew some of what we would encounter, Captain.” Black paused for a beat. “If they truly want us to succeed in sending the beacon to Pluto, then it follows they would have ensured we had the tools to do so.”

  Dunn nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that.” He stared into the image, his eyes focusing on the brilliant pinpoint of light shining behind the fractured landscape of Atmo-steel. The light. That’s what they had to extract. The rest of the ship could go to pieces. Mira wasn’t the mission anymore. The beacon was. Now all he had to do was figure out how to remove it or destroy it.

  “Taulbee?”

  “Aye, sir?” the LT’s voice immediately responded.

  “You’re loaded with the new weapons?”

  “Aye, sir,” Taulbee said. He sounded a little more alert and less dumbfounded.

  “I guess it’s time to try a few of them out.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Dickerson had flown past her, Carb trailing behind him like a cape. Her boot had nearly clipped Kali’s helmet as they streaked by. Kali saw dark shapes flowing out from the airlock like a plague of locusts. She screamed at Elliott to detach and move. He did, just as she did the same. His pathetic civvie suit barely had enough power to get him off the deck. Kali pushed her thrusters to maximum and pushed him forward. He shot down the hallway, but her own momentum was cut in half. Critical fuel warnings flashed across her HUD. She had enough fuel left for one attitude burn, or one thruster burn. Grinding her teeth, she spun herself so she faced the threat.

  Kali didn’t aim so much as fill the hallway with flechettes. Three rounds struck the middle of the cloud in an explosion of electricity and debris. Two more rounds hit the wall and detonated, creating arcs of blue light that traveled across the swarm like lightning.

  The dark triangular shapes flew in all directions, the cloud dispersing in a frantic z-g scramble, the creatures colliding with one another and bouncing to the ceiling, the deck, and the bulkheads. She spun herself again, put her legs straight out behind her and punched her thrusters. The burn lasted for little more than a second, but it was enough to propel her forward. Elliott, Dickerson, and Carb were already far down the corridor, but she was gaining fast.

  Kali glanced at her rear suit cams and grinned. The shapes were still regrouping. She just hoped like hell they had enough time to reach the far edge of the science section. Her HUD claimed they were only forty meters from the exit. She had a few shots left in the current mag, and then she’d have to reload. If Dickerson wasn’t able to give her cover fire and those things managed to catch her, she was fucked.

  The seconds passed with agonizing slowness. The far bulkhead suddenly came into view, illuminated by Dickerson’s suit lights. He was flying too fast. He was going to crunch into the bulkhead along with Carb.

  At the last second, he thrust out his legs to cushion the blow. He hit the wall and collapsed his legs to ease the collision. Dickerson grunted with pain over the comms and Carb slammed into the bulkhead next to him. Elliott, the only one of them with thruster power, managed to slow his approach and keep himself from crashing into both of them.

  Kali swung herself in an effort to reach the bulkhead with a mag-glove, but the corridor was too wide. She turned the magnetics to full, and tried again. This time, the magnetic field was strong enough to at least make her drift toward the corridor bulkhead. Her trajectory changed slightly and then the pull rapidly increased until she slammed into the steel. She loosed a cry of pain, her ribs feeling as though they had speared her insides.

  “Get the fucking door open!” Kali screamed.

  Carb had unhooked herself from Dickerson and floated to the deck while he tried to collect himself. Elliott used his mag-gloves to drag himself down, his breath wheezing over the comms. Dickerson’s body writhed in pain. Kali decreased her magnetics and climbed down the corridor bulkhead until her feet touched the deck. She walked forward on unsteady feet, her torso swaying despite the magnetics securing her feet to the deck. Fiery pain stabbed through her rib cage, making her wince.

  An indicator light on the side of the airlock flashed from red to yellow to green as Carb cranked the manual release. Kali mag-walked as fast as she could, each step an exercise in misery.

  “Got it!” Carb yelled.

  Dickerson groaned as he pushed himself to the deck. Something flickered in Kali’s rear cam feed. She glanced at it, feeling as though she were thinking through glue. The shapes had reappeared, reorganized into a spawning cloud. A few of them had broken off from the main group and approached through the air. Then she realized they weren’t just oblong triangles, but they had wings, the edges vibrating in the light as they lazily flapped.

  “Get—” she started to say, her breath catching in her throat as another searing explosion of pain burst in her chest. “Get out. Now.”

  Dickerson turned to her. Elliott and Carb walked through the airlock and into the corridor beyond. She took another step forward, leaned, and sagged. She couldn’t lift her foot. All the strength, all the adrenaline, everything was gone. She was empty. There was nothing left.

  The large marine stepped to her, his left shoulder drooping, and placed his good hand on her shoulder. She felt the magnetic field locked her to his hand. “Let go,” he said. She could barely keep her eyes open. Void, but she was tired. “Let. Go.” The words were clipped, calm, and evenly spaced, but she heard the strength in them, the urgency in how he’d spoken them. She cut her magnetics and immediately floated upward.

  The cloud of shapes behind her gained speed. The cloud was coming. They were both going to be surrounded, swallowed by creatures with impossibly black wings. The bulkhead came into view and she suddenly realized he’d pulled her through the airlock. Someone yelled over the comms, the door sliding shut just as the shapes filled her vision. Something black, small but massive, struck her faceplate and the darkness swallowed her.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Nobel ran a hand across the Atmo-steel slab, luxuriating in the neat, smooth lines and the feel of the cold metal on his skin. “Beautiful,” he said aloud. Murdock made a sound that might have been a snort. Nobel raised his eyes and glared at the marine. “Something to say, Private?”

  Murdock flinched. “No, sir. Nothing.”

  “Bullshit,” Nobel said. “You think it looks ugly. You think it’s just a big slab of metal that has no artistic merit.” He stood with his hands on his hips, eyes boring into the private’s.

  Murdock was doing his best to keep a straight face. So was Wendt.

  Gunny cleared his throat. “I for one think it’s
a marvelous job, Lieutenant.”

  “Thank you, Gunny.” He slapped the side of the sled and examined it once more, his eyes poring over the craft. He shrugged. “Okay. Fine. It’s ugly. But not bad for a rush job,” he said. Nobel glanced at Gunny. “Now all we need is a beacon to strap to it.”

  “Aye, sir,” Gunny said. “I imagine Lieutenant Taulbee is taking care of that right now.”

  “Probably,” Nobel said. He looked at the sled again, wincing in pain with every movement. His leg still hurt like a sonofabitch and he’d need to stay off it a while at some point, but for now, all he could do was hope the nannies continued pumping out THC to compensate.

  The sled, with its rocket engines and relatively small mass, would make it to Pluto in less than a day. If he really poured on the speed, it could probably get there in half a day. A human wouldn’t be able to survive that kind of g-force unless the tiny craft had an acceleration couch or pod. He smirked. That was perhaps the best part of building the damned thing—no humans required. No life support, no acceleration couches, no amenities. They’d strap the beacon in, position the sled, and let it rip. And that would be that. He hoped.

  Nobel glanced upward as he received a block message from Dunn. With a wary hesitation, he accepted. “Aye, sir?”

  “Nobel. I’m sending you a few feed images. Both you and Gunny. I think we’re going to need the skiff to get the beacon out, but we’re going to have to clear some junk first.”

  “Junk, sir?”

  “Take a look at the first image.”

  He kept the block connection alive and brought up the first image. Although both Dunn’s voice and the image were coming through his block and not in real life, his mouth dropped open anyway. Someone had obviously applied a ton of filters to the image, but it was clear enough to see what Dunn was talking about. Mira’s aft was little more than an Atmo-steel spider’s web, if that spider had been tripping balls on some Titan Temptation.