Derelict_Destruction

by Paul E. Cooley

  The floods illuminated a hanging, damaged support beam that looked like a crooked, deteriorated tooth. Gunny managed to hit the attitude thrusters in time to push the skiff to starboard before they rammed right into it. He heard Wendt exhale harshly through the comms and did his best not to do the same.

  The light continued to weaken as if the floods were losing power, yet his HUD showed no power loss at all. Something’s eating the light, he thought. That’s insane. Yet he knew that’s exactly what was happening.

  He continued maneuvering the skiff through clouds of crumbled Atmo-steel and twisted supports. Flakes of tortured metal, and perhaps shattered exo-solar lifeform carapaces, pinged off his helmet and visor. Some of the debris tugged at his form-fitting combat suit, scraping against the Atmo-steel weave and threatening to stick. Gunny barely noticed.

  The seconds ticked down in his head like a counter, each of his heartbeats marking another second toward being attacked by void knew how many hostiles. And the beacon was still thirty meters away.

  The floods dimmed again. Now he could barely see more than five meters in front of him. “Wendt,” he growled. “Keep using that cannon cam. You see something before I do, scream out before you fire.”

  “Aye, Gunny,” Wendt said. “But I can’t see shit.”

  “I can’t either,” Murdock whispered.

  Gunny said nothing. He slowed the skiff again and barely had time to dodge another support beam. Then his eyes went wide.

  The “nests” had been made of some kind of metal. Or biological material that looked like metal. Just as with the creatures’ shells and limbs, the substance looked jet-black except for the occasional ridge or other defect, but many of the support beams had dark crusts and thick tendrils wrapping around the Atmo-steel. To Gunny, the tissue looked suspiciously like human afterbirth if it had been spray painted black and made of metal. He shivered at the mental image of an alien womb spreading the substance like mucous over the supports to hold its eggs or spawn.

  Twenty meters to the beacon. The rising rad meter gauge on the HUD didn’t exactly calm him. The levels were still far below lethal and the suit shielding had so far handled the barrage of radiation, but he didn’t know how much longer that would last. Every meter forward meant another notch on the gauge. By the time they reached the beacon, he figured the gauge would be little more than a point or two from the red. Once it swung into that area, they’d have less than two minutes before their suit shields failed. And after that? Well, he and his squad wouldn’t need lights—they’d glow in the fucking dark.

  Beneath the wash of crackles and spits that spilled through the comms, he heard a voice that might have been Dunn’s, but it was impossible to understand. Every syllable or two, static flooded over the voice like a tsunami. The light from the floods dwindled, the powerful lamps’ illumination barely more than a glow in the darkness. Gunny’s skin crawled as he slowed to less than 1m/s. He could hardly see anything and to make matters worse, the clock ticking in his head had counted down to zero. They were out of time and hadn’t yet reached the beacon.

  Another careful port thrust and the skiff floated past broken support beams. The rad counter went up again, his HUD flashing with radiation warnings. Something near the back of the aft section flashed, briefly bathing the area in harsh white light. Before the afterimage completely blinded him, he saw it. The beacon.

  He brought the skiff to a full stop although he was unable to see his hands in front of him. The suit’s screens had stopped the worst of the flash, a burst so high it should have permanently blinded him, but it still left a ghostly reflection on his retinas. He reflexively tried to blink it away, but it stayed with him, and while it did, they were at a complete standstill.

  “Gunny?” Wendt said nervously.

  “Yeah. I need a second here,” he said. The beacon. A few scant meters away, so close even the wan light illuminated the clutter of etchings and scratches along the cylinder. The device could flash-fry them if it decided to go off again at full power. The damned thing had attracted these crazy lifeforms from void only knew where, but it was a bonafide alien artifact. Scientists would pore over it for decades, if not centuries, trying to determine if the markings indicated language and if so, what the scratches and etches meant. He had no doubt it would have its own museum on Earth and be patronized by the wealthiest in Sol. He smirked. It wasn’t going to Earth or anywhere else in Sol System, let alone a museum. No one would study it, no one would try and unlock the secrets of its power source or who had made it. Instead, they were going to send it straight to Hell.

  His eyes fully cleared and he rotated the skiff, mindful of the two twisted support beams hanging less than a meter from the top of the cannon placement. If he ran into those, he could damage the cannon, or even decapitate Wendt. As he swung the skiff, he said, “Murdock. You’re our retriever.”

  There was a long pause before the marine answered. “Aye, Gunny.”

  “Tether yourself, and get out there. I want that thing in the skiff as fast as you can make it happen.”

  “Aye,” the private said again.

  Gunny flipped his attention to the rear cam and couldn’t help but grin. Murdock had appeared, his rifle mag-locked to his back like a professional soldier. The marine tentatively activated his suit-thrusters just enough to nudge him toward the beacon. Gunny held his breath as the young marine approached the cylindrical object. Murdock reached the scarred and blackened platform where the beacon sat, its cradle of plas-steel weathered and pitted as if from thousands of micro impacts. Wendt’s suit cam showed him all the detail he needed to see.

  The images Kalimura’s squad had sent from Mira didn’t do the thing justice. In the near absolute darkness of the broken aft-section, the cylinder seemed to glow beneath Murdock’s suit lights. Worse, the glow seemed to be getting brighter.

  “Hurry the fuck up,” he whispered to no one.

  Murdock stepped onto the platform, his foot mag-locking him to the Atmo-steel surface. He carefully pulled his other foot forward and locked it as well. He stood there for a moment before leaning toward the device. Through the suit cam, Gunny saw the holdup. The cradle in which the beacon sat was hardly intact after all. The front of the cradle seemed fine, but the sides had become a tangle of thick, melted plas-steel.

  “Gunny?” Murdock said. “How do I—?”

  “Use your knife,” he said as calmly as he could, doing his best to ignore the screaming voice in his head telling him to get the fuck out of here as fast as he could. “Cut that shit away. Pull a torch if you have to.”

  Murdock paused for a moment before reaching into his pouch and pulling the vibro-knife. He leaned in further and began cutting the material. It parted with some effort, Murdock’s arm visibly struggling to pull the Atmo-steel blade through the congealed material.

  “Gunny?” Wendt’s voice broke through the comms.

  “What?”

  “Forward cams. I think we have a problem.”

  Gunny flipped back to the skiff’s forward cam. He blinked twice before his mouth opened in a large ‘O’ of surprise. The KBO had arrived. And hell had arrived with it.

  *****

  Taulbee had rotated the SV-52 to face the incoming threat and Copenhaver kept the cannon pointed at Mira, ready to shoot anything that looked like it might try and enter the aft-section. Or, Taulbee thought, if anything comes out of there apart from the skiff.

  With his eyes fixed on the incoming KBO, the other cam feeds forgotten, Taulbee could only stare in wonder as the thing closed the distance. Less than a km now, and it was slowing.

  “Lieutenant,” Black said, instantly causing Taulbee to jump in his seat, “we are ready to fire.”

  “Copy,” Taulbee said. “You’re a go.”

  Black counted down from three. In the vacuum of space, there was no sound to hear as the missile left its launch tube, and no sound when its rockets kicked in. The only proof Taulbee had that anything had happened at all was the object tha
t streaked by the SV-52 some fifty meters above. As it passed, its bright rocket engine plume caused his screens to dim the incoming light. The feed’s strong filters made the plume a dark yellow and blue flare rather than a blinding white.

  The missile quickly accelerated before detonating in the KBO’s proximity with a muted flash. A large cloud of gas appeared in space, the particles barely reflecting Sol’s anemic light. That was when everything changed.

  The KBO seemed to explode, or maybe shatter was the right word. It came apart like a large sedimentary rock in a jet spray of water. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of creatures broke apart in an amorphous swarm of incongruous shapes. A second later, the rabble moved as one toward the cloud, their disparate trajectories suddenly converging. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before.

  The creatures flew into the cloud and seemed to stop in its midst. But they hadn’t really stopped. Instead, they were flying in circles, racing through and around the cloud like electrons orbiting an atom. The cloud, which should have dissipated after twenty seconds, was erased in the space of no more than five heartbeats. Not erased, Taulbee thought. Consumed.

  He held his breath, waiting to see what they would do next. He didn’t have to wait long. The creatures continued their bombing run through the remains of the cloud, assuredly plucking every last molecule of their unexpected meal. When they finished, the exo-solar lifeforms began reassembling themselves in a misshapen sphere.

  “Oh, shit,” he said. “Copenhaver?”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Get ready to swing that cannon.”

  “Copy, sir,” she said. He glanced at the cannon cam. She was still holding position on Mira, the cannon ready to rain tritium flechette rounds on any hostiles.

  “Taulbee to Dunn, over.”

  “Go ahead,” the captain said.

  “I don’t think that slowed them down much, sir.”

  “Neither do I,” Dunn said. “Black?”

  The AI didn’t pause before speaking. “We can fire another munition, Captain, but I doubt it will hold them any longer than the first.”

  “Great,” Taulbee muttered.

  “Taulbee? If they come within range,” Dunn said, “give them something to think about. But you better keep a good ammo reserve. We have more incoming.”

  The creatures had finished assembling themselves, and once again, they were moving toward Mira, their speed vastly diminished from their first approach. His HUD displayed their distance at 900 meters and quickly accelerating. Based on the rate, they would be within cannon range in a few seconds, and on top of the SV-52 roughly 10 seconds after that. No time at all, really.

  “Goddamnit, Gunny,” he said. He nudged the fore thrusters and the SV-52 began gliding backward at 2m/s in Mira’s direction. If those creatures were going to attack, he wanted to be sure he didn’t crash into them with forward momentum. Not that it would matter much. If they were made of the same material as the starfish or the pinecones, the canopy would be obliterated in an instant, and shortly after that, the SV-52 would be little more than a debris cloud itself.

  They were coming. Thousands of them. And more KBOs were on their way? We. Are. Fucked. The thoughts bounced inside his skull like flechette shards slamming into a hull. He realized his focus had been shattered and desperately tried to fight back the fear. It was Copenhaver’s voice that finally managed to break through the swirling images of destruction.

  “Sir? What is that?”

  He shook himself and checked the cannon feed. For the second time in as many minutes, his mouth opened in surprise. But instead of wonder, a terrible river of ice roared through his veins.

  The very top of Mira’s hull had darkened to near black, as if the giant hulk was being consumed. At first, he thought space itself had decided to devour Mira, all her secrets, and all her exo-solar hitchhikers. But gaps of Atmo-steel appeared through the crawling wall of darkness. Pinecones. Thousands of them. Maybe hundreds of thousands, descended over the hull. The creatures floated from the top of the hull and headed to the damaged aft.

  “Void help us,” Taulbee said. “Copenhaver?”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Give them something to think about.”

  “Copy,” she said. The skiff vibrated as the cannon came to life.

  *****

  The aft ate light. That much Gunny knew. He didn’t know the physics behind it and didn’t much give a shit. While the phenomenon was much worse near the beacon, the effect wasn’t uniform. The bow cam feed caught enough Kuiper Belt light to see the edges of the destroyed infrastructure leading into space, but there was little space to be seen. Dozens of shapes flitted near the entrance. A few beats later, hundreds more appeared. Now it was more like thousands.

  “Damnit,” Gunny whispered. He attempted a connection to Taulbee, but his HUD lit up with comm failures. Whatever was eating the light apparently swallowed the radio signals as well. This far inside Mira, it was impossible to communicate with either S&R Black or Taulbee. They were on their own.

  “Murdock!” Gunny yelled. “Get that fucking thing inside the skiff! Now!”

  Murdock didn’t answer. Gunny flipped back to the aft feed. The marine had finished cutting away the melted spots from one side and was working on the other. The beacon was glowing brighter.

  “Murdock!” Gunny yelled again.

  “Working on it,” Murdock muttered. With a terrific wrench, he pulled the melted plas-steel clump away from the beacon. The glow ratcheted up. Murdock mag-locked his gloves to the beacon and pulled. The strange object grudgingly left its cradle, Murdock leaning backward against its sudden release. He groaned before shutting down his magnetics. The momentum moved him off the platform and left him gliding back to the skiff, his charge in tow.

  “Secure that thing!” Gunny yelled.

  Murdock freed one hand and pulled himself along using the tether. He only had two meters to travel between the platform and skiff’s gunwale, but it seemed to take forever. Gunny’s heart rate rose as he watched with growing impatience.

  He switched back to the bow feed. The entrance they’d used had turned into a broken wall of darkness. “Wendt?”

  “Aye, Gunny. It’s getting a lot worse.”

  “Well, get ready to clear a path,” he said. “I get the feeling they’re not going to let us out of here without a fight.”

  “Copy,” Wendt said, his voice filled with determined, but nervous, resolve.

  “Aboard!” Murdock yelled. He had one foot mag-locked to the skiff and was still pulling the beacon over the gunwale.

  “Get it secured!”

  He was sure Murdock muttered something under his breath, but Gunny wasn’t going to yell at him for that. His own heart was doing gymnastics and the urge to hit the throttle, to get the fuck out of here, was almost unstoppable. With every second that passed, the horde out there multiplied, thickening like a wall of moving tar. But worse than that was the palpable feeling of being inside this haunted derelict, the dread of doom crawling across his skin.

  Murdock’s other foot locked to the floor and he had the beacon nearly inside the gunwale. Another second ticked by, his nerves jangling, his fingers tightening on the controls. The beacon slammed down into the hull as the storage area magnetics kicked on, the skiff vibrating and shuddering from the impact.

  “Clear!” Murdock yelled. The private was already reaching for his rifle.

  “Marines! Make a hole!” Gunny hit the thrusters while preparing for another obstacle course.

  *****

  The creatures flew in like a fast-moving plague. While Copenhaver fired tritium flechette rounds from the mounted cannon, he was forced to keep her cam feed minimized. The power forcing him was utter fear.

  They looked like bulky missiles with a sail of tendrils wriggling and waving in Sol’s direction. Long, wide arms jutted from the sides of the bulbous creatures, each ending in a hook similar to what the pinecones had. The mouths, if you could call them that, were dark holes surr
ounded by what looked like mandibles and a long, waving proboscis.

  A coordinated formation of dozens of the creatures flew toward him, heading straight for the SV-52’s canopy. “Copenhaver! Get ready for a bump!”

  She didn’t have time to reply before the first of the creatures slammed into the Atmo-steel hull. It missed the canopy by less than a meter. The craft, already moving backward, shuddered from the impact and the SV-52 began sliding to port.

  The creature, apparently unharmed, bounced off the hull and drifted directly in front of the canopy. Mere centimeters from the transparent aluminum, Taulbee fought a scream as the creature opened its mouth. A ring of sharp, silvery teeth glinted in the glare from the floodlights. Nearly a meter wide, and several in length, it seemed to stare at him although it had no eyes. The creature flung its wide arms and it swam, for lack of a better term, over the canopy and out of sight.

  “Holy shit!” Copenhaver yelled.

  He flipped to the cannon’s cam feed. The creature that had slammed into the hull had slipped behind them heading toward Mira. With the cannon zoomed in, the feed made the strange lifeform’s image appear the size of Mira itself. Taulbee would have chuckled if not for the fact he was still reeling from shock. He had enough sense to switch back to the bow cam and spotted another sortie of the creatures.

  This group flew more spread apart and appeared to notice the SV-52 as well as S&R Black. Rather than heading straight at him or the larger ship, they skirted beneath, above, and around. He should have felt relief, no longer having to worry about a swarm of the things wrecking the SV-52, but their tactics meant they were smart. Possibly as smart as the starfish and much, much faster.

  Two more flocks headed toward Mira. It was hopeless. He wasn’t going to be able to stop shit from here. He rotated the SV-52, Copenhaver’s cannon remaining fixed on the wall of pinecones attempting to swallow Mira’s aft and Gunny’s exit. When he finished turning, a flash of light appeared near S&R Black. She had fired another of the Trio’s “gifts” and a large group of pinecones evaporated into particles.