Yeah, Taulbee thought. Hunting. The only question was who was going to be hunting whom.
Chapter Fifty-One
The shadowy Kuiper Belt had been their home for human centuries. For them, however, it might as well have been measured in human nano-seconds. Their interstellar travel had taken them far from their origin space, far from the star they’d once orbited.
The occasional stream of photons broke their long hibernation, but only momentarily. The creatures would awake from their slumber long enough to consume gas molecules and drink in energy from the distant sun. Human centuries passed between these brief periods, and the lifeforms enjoyed their brief wakings before passing back into slumber.
They had waited. Waited for the universe to change. For there to be light. Light to feed. Light to sustain. Light to breed.
The sudden burst of photons in the belt awoke them, energized them, and they drank in every particle. When it released yet another pulse, they did more than wake up. They began to travel.
Thousands and thousands of them clumped together in a roughly spherical shape, their bodies purging themselves of millennia-old gas reserves their core provided. Once the pod began to accelerate, there was no way to slow it down. But with the continued pulses, there would be no reason. Once they reached the source, they would be free. They would be free to find a new home.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Floating before Mira’s infested aft section wasn’t for the meek. The ram had caused a lot of damage to the remaining superstructure, breaking off beams, crashing through the remaining bulkheads, and shredding webs of cables and whatever material the exo-solar creatures had used to make their nests. The cloud of debris inside the aft-section was only matched by the swarms of pinecones, starfish, and void only knew what else. The ram had kicked over the proverbial ant mound and now getting inside was more than just dangerous. It was a fucking suicide mission.
“Gunny?” Taulbee’s voice crackled over the comms.
“Aye, sir.”
“What do you think?”
Gunny stopped himself before cursing, but only just. “I believe,” he said, “we have a bit of a pest problem.”
The lieutenant laughed, although Gunny thought it sounded a bit forced. “Black has an idea about that,” he said. “We fire another CO2 round and get the bastards interested in leaving the area for a few minutes.”
“A few minutes,” Gunny echoed. “Sir, at best speed, it will take us at least two minutes to get to the beacon. And that’s if we manage to skate all the debris. We’re going to need a little more time if we want to make it back out with the beacon.”
“Agreed,” Taulbee said. “Which is why we’re going to clear it out.”
Gunny raised an eyebrow. “What do you have in mind?”
He could practically hear Taulbee trying to choose his words, not to mention find the right tone of voice. “The Trio loaded us up with more than tritium flechettes and CO2 bombs. I have two hyper-neutrino warheads loaded and ready to launch.”
Gunny frowned. “You’re going to fire the warheads inside?”
“Affirmative,” Taulbee said. “Bottom line? It should clear out the aft-section. Then we’ll use the CO2 missiles to handle the rest.”
“Aye, sir.” Gunny waited for the lieutenant to continue, but he didn’t. “I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming.”
“But,” Taulbee said, “we don’t know exactly what it’s going to do. Apart from destroying anything biological.”
If he hadn’t been wearing a helmet and magnetically tethered to a skiff floating out in space, Gunny would have rubbed his eyes. “Sir? Are we sure those things even count as ‘biological?’”
Taulbee paused before replying, the seconds stretching into an infuriatingly long eternity. “Gunny? I don’t know. The Trio certainly thinks they are.”
Great, Gunny thought. We’re trusting our lives on their conclusions. Or hell, maybe just their suspicions. “Understood, sir.”
“Only real problem,” Taulbee said, “is we don’t think your suits will keep you from getting shredded into nothing. Therefore, I suggest you move back another klick from Mira.”
“Acknowledged, sir,” Gunny said.
“I’ll give you a heads up before we fire.”
“Aye, sir,” Gunny said. Heads up. He glanced at the cam feed. The creatures seemed to have ended their feeding frenzy on the CO2 released by the missile. The swarms were gathering again, order reestablishing itself after the chaos.
He activated the squad comms. “Marines, we’re going to get a little more distance between us and that derelict piece of shit. Wendt? Keep your head on a swivel. I don’t want any surprises while we’re moving.”
“Copy, Gunny.”
“Murdock? You’re the other lookout. Keep cycling through the cam feeds. You both let me know if you see anything hostile approaching.”
“Aye, Gunny,” Murdock said.
The kid sounded afraid, but less out of sorts than he had on their last trip out. That was an improvement. Not much, but a start.
“Here we go,” he said and activated the fore thrusters. The skiff moved backward, slowly accelerating. Gunny kept his eyes on the fore cam feed, watching with some relief as he put more distance between the skiff and Mira’s infested aft-section.
Now, he thought, if only we didn’t have to go back in there, this would be perfect. Shadows moved across the pulsing lights inside the wrecked hull. Gunny shivered. What was that large one? A new lifeform? Or just another starfish?
He watched as the distance meter rolled higher and higher. The skiff’s laser sensor repeatedly fired pulses at Mira and measured the response from the hull. 300 meters. 400. The SV-52 came into view, the craft hanging above them like a shadowy, misshapen bird.
Taulbee had come to a complete stop, waiting for Gunny to clear the area. He wondered just how close the SV-52 would have to get to Mira before firing the missile. More importantly, he hoped the radiation shielding on the ‘52 kept the LT and Copenhaver safe. Shit, he hoped 1km was far enough away for his squad to survive.
When they reached an 800m distance from Mira, he started to decelerate with nudges of the aft thrusters. By the time they reached 1km, the SV-52 had nearly come to a halt itself.
“Gunny?” Murdock said, his voice trembling.
“What is it, Private?”
“Sir, there’s something behind us. And it’s coming fast.”
Gunny switched to the rear cam feed. He saw nothing but the glint of distant stars. “What are you talking about?”
“Shit,” Wendt said. “Switch to the cannon feed, Gunny.”
Frowning, Gunny flipped feeds. He took a deep breath and held it. Out in the emptiness behind them, and above them, something a little less dark than space itself was moving toward them. Random pin-pricks of light flashed off its surface.
“How far?” Gunny asked in a dead voice.
“Collision course. Two minutes,” Wendt said.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Gunny was out of the way. At least Taulbee hoped.
The skiff had backed up a kilometer away from Mira. Black suggested the distance might be safe. Might. Taulbee didn’t like “mights” or “supposedly” or even “I think” when it came to the safety of his marines, and he sure as hell didn’t like them when they had to do with his own safety. Basically, because Black didn’t say “I’m sure” or “I know,” he knew this could turn into one big shit show. But did they have a choice?
Yeah. That was the problem. The Trio insisted they needed to capture the beacon. So did Black and the captain. Taulbee understood all of that. If the device was attracting the creatures, they needed a way to keep it secure, and hopefully keep the damned things from going deeper into Sol System. So, yes, they needed the beacon.
Taulbee growled low in his throat. On the SV-52’s forward cam feed, the aft section’s dark interior seemed to dance with even darker shadows. The ram had left extensive damage in its wake, the infrastructure now little mor
e than twisted shapes of Atmo-steel and swirls of fractured and disintegrated plas-steel. But that didn’t mean the aft was clear. Not one bit.
The pulsing lights had increased in brightness, as though they’d awakened the creatures. “Pissed them off, more like,” he said aloud. And that’s just what they needed. Gunny flying into the proverbial kicked hornet’s nest the pre-Sol Era books liked to talk about.
Taulbee had never seen a hornet. He’d seen bees before in the Dallas agricultural domes, but never a hornet, but he knew how much a sting supposedly hurt. Mira had turned from being a haunted hulk of crumbling Atmo-steel into the largest damned hornet nest that ever existed. And the hornets? They did more than sting.
The command crew comms came to life. “Sir?” Gunny said. “We have a bogie coming at us. A big one.”
Frowning, Taulbee flipped to the rear cams. He didn’t see anything, but the gasp Copenhaver loosed told him all he knew. He switched to the cannon cam and there it was—a large irregularly shaped shadow traveling at high speed and right into their path.
“I see it, Gunny.”
“Black?” Dunn said. “Suggestions?”
The AI responded immediately. “We have five more CO2 projectiles. I suggest we fire one to distract the incoming object.”
“You mean,” Taulbee said, “it’s an exo-solar lifeform.”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Black said. “Only not a single lifeform.”
Taulbee shuddered. A swarm. A herd. A cluster? What was the right name anyway?
“Taulbee?” Dunn asked.
The sound of the captain’s voice shook off the random thoughts. “Aye, sir?”
“We’ll give you cover,” the captain said. “Go ahead with the plan.”
“Aye, sir,” Taulbee said. “Gunny? You ready?”
“Aye, sir,” Gunny said. “I’ve got the throttle ready in case we need to get moving in a hurry.”
“Just make sure you don’t head toward it,” Taulbee said.
“Aye, sir,” Gunny said after a brief pause. Taulbee grinned. He knew the sergeant had just managed to keep himself from saying “no shit.”
“Here we go,” Taulbee said. “Copenhaver?”
“On your mark, sir.”
Taulbee tightened his hands on the controls while all the possibilities flipped through his mind. There could be a shockwave. They could be knocked from their position, thrown in any direction. Maybe even into the path of the oncoming object. Or creatures. And wouldn’t that be the perfect ending to this mess?
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Mark.”
The SV-52 shuddered as the magnetic launcher repelled the missile through the tube and into space. Once it reached a distance of 10 meters, the rocket engine kicked in. The missile streaked through the twilight, its aft burning yellow and orange as it ate the emptiness between the SV-52 and Mira in less than three seconds. And then the universe became a very interesting place.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Gunny held his breath. He didn’t have to ask Wendt or Murdock if they were doing the same. Hell, Murdock had probably already shit his suit. Gunny wouldn’t blame him if he did.
They were 250 meters away from the SV-52, and a full klick away from Mira itself. For regular munitions detonations, that was more than adequate. If a ship dropped a nuke, however, that was a completely different set of problems. Neither the SFMC nor the SFN were in the habit of dropping that kind of ordnance if their marines could be caught in the blast, so it wasn’t a concern you normally had to have.
This was different. When the normal ordnance went off, you knew the damage potential. You knew damned well how many hull plates might turn into debris fields, whether or not there might be radiation leaks, and the size of the shockwave. With this? Who the hell knew? Certainly not the goddamned AIs, let alone the idiot humans floating hundreds of meters from where the missile was going.
Taulbee announced he was firing. Gunny clutched the controls in a death grip, his flesh pinched inside his form-fitting gloves. “Here we go, marines,” he said. The squad comms, just like the general comms, had gone deathly silent. From the SV-52’s belly, a cylindrical object popped out of its tube, flying through space at a lazy speed of a few meters per second. As soon as it reached 10 meters from the craft, its rocket engine came to life.
Gunny watched in utter silence as the missile streaked toward Mira. “Get ready,” he said to his squad. The two marines didn’t reply, but he could feel the tension as if Murdock and Wendt were sitting next to him, without suits, and without the void of space surrounding them. This was either going to be a miracle for them, or turn life into one hell of a nightmare. In the seconds it took for the munition to eat the distance between the SV-52 and Mira, Gunny realized there was a third possibility—they could all just die. He grunted at the thought just as the missile found its target.
The cam feed pointed at Mira stuttered with static when a bright flash erupted inside the derelict’s broken aft section. Gunny’s screens dampened the near solar-strength flash of light keeping him from being blinded, but the rest of what he saw was through the haze of a spherical afterimage.
Mira’s aft section glowed for an instant before it once again fell into shadows. Some kind of debris cloud formed inside the broken and shattered remnants of the giant ship’s aft section. Then…nothing.
“So, that’s it?” Wendt said over the comms.
Gunny held his breath, his eyes still trying to recover from the afterimage. He waited another moment before exhaling with a grin on his face. “I guess so,” he said just as a radiation alert popped up in red on his HUD. “Oh, shit,” he said. A second later, their suits were bombarded with the energy from extreme radioactive decay. The wave of particles passed in an eye blink and the rad warning disappeared. “Check your suits,” he growled into the mic.
His own HUD told him his suit had blocked a very lethal wave of radiation. Both Wendt and Murdock had weathered the storm as well. Holy shit, he thought. We’re alive.
“Dunn to Gunny.”
“Aye, sir.”
The captain sighed. “Good to hear you’re still there.”
“Copy that, sir,” he said.
Dunn cleared his throat. “Taulbee? What’s the damage?”
A new feed appeared on his HUD. Gunny added the stream and brought it up on the main window, barely registering that the images were from Copenhaver’s cannon cam. Unlike the skiff’s cannon, the SV-52’s cannon had been designed for reconnaissance as well as targeting hostiles from a long distance. The cannon’s feed detail was much better than anything Gunny could hope for from the skiff’s cams. But he almost wished the detail was less clear.
The inside of Mira looked more like a yawning mouth now. The warhead had done little structural damage, or so it appeared, but the nests of pulsing lights had gone dark as though they’d never existed. There wasn’t enough light now to see inside the aft section. Without the glow the creatures had provided, even the blue filters couldn’t penetrate the deepest shadows. Gunny checked the location of the beacon. It was now clothed in complete and total darkness.
“Well,” Taulbee said, “that was interesting.” He paused for a beat. “Gunny?”
He gulped and tried to staunch the flittering butterflies in his stomach. “Ready, sir.”
“Get going.”
“Aye, sir.” He switched to the squad comms. “We’re moving out, marines.” He opened the throttle and the rear thrusters came to life. The skiff was on the move.
*****
Taulbee watched the skiff pass beneath the SV-52 and continued accelerating. Wendt had the skiff’s cannon pointed at Mira’s aft while Murdock, at the skiff’s rear, held his rifle and scanned the space around them for targets. Gunny and his two marines were heading into the maelstrom. Taulbee said a silent prayer to the void they’d grab the damned thing and get out of there without losing anyone, but he knew the chances of that were damned small.
“Sir?” Copenhaver asked.
“That object hasn’t slowed. It’s coming straight at us.”
Cursing, he flipped to Copenhaver’s cam feed. She had swiveled the turret and cam so it faced the incoming KBO. No more than thirty seconds had passed between their first proximity warning and the missile firing, but it was already enough for him to make out certain details.
The object’s surface not only shimmered, but writhed with activity. It was still too far away to make out exactly what was shaking and pulsing, but something alive or mechanical, actually several hundred somethings, covered the object. Or maybe they were the object in totality. A shiver ran down his spine. Could that be a nest similar to the ones they’d seen inside Mira? Or was it something worse?
“Taulbee to Dunn, over.”
“Go ahead,” the captain said.
“We have a bead on the incoming bogie, sir.”
“So do we,” Dunn said. “Black is ready to fire a CO2 cloud. We’re going to wait until it’s a little closer.”
“Copy, sir.”
He flipped from the cam feed to that of the skiff. The kilometer of space that between Mira and the craft had all but disappeared. The skiff, traveling at 15m/s, had nearly reached the damaged superstructure. They were heading inside. In another few seconds, he wouldn’t be able to see anything of the skiff apart from its powerful floodlights stabbing through the darkness.
“Get in and get out, Gunny,” Taulbee said to no one.
*****
Darkness closed over them like a death shroud. Gunny had kicked on the floods when they were less than fifty meters away from Mira’s lightless interior, but the lights might as well have been as powerful as matches. Instead of shining off the remaining Atmo-steel deck plates, bulkheads, and hanging debris, the light just seemed to disappear ten or so meters away from the skiff.
He’d planned on cutting the skiff’s speed to 5m/s, but without more visibility, that was much too fast. By the time he’d see an obstacle, the skiff would hit it a second later. He fired the fore thrusters and the skiff slowed to 2m/s. It was still too fast, but if they had any chance of reaching the beacon before the first of the KBOs attacked, he had to push his luck.
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