The rest of the war had been scavenge, salvage, anything to stay alive while SFMC fought their way through the mess of true guerrilla warfare, the very first wave of which nearly destroyed the entire SFMC fleet. Taulbee had survived both the Mars Rebellion and The Satellite War, but somehow, being out here in the relative emptiness of the Kuiper Belt, finding this was even more disturbing.
Their rad alarms should have been going apeshit, but the elevated radiation levels were barely in the yellow and well below the shielding of either suit type. He and Copenhaver enjoyed more protection being inside a meter of Atmo-steel surrounding their cabin, but the rad suits were just ticking between high green and low yellow. The rads necessary to cause the kind of damage the skiff had taken should have ravaged the rad suits instead of just warming them up. Whatever had caused the rads didn’t have much of a duration. The nuked hunks of metal he’d seen in the Martian Ring had tripped every single rad alarm on any ship that got near them. And that was hours and hours after the skirmish. In less than an hour, the rads from the beacon blast had dissipated to almost normal. Elevated, but normal.
“A little slower, sir,” Wendt said.
Taulbee focused on the cannon cam, adjusting the SV-52’s speed while keeping the target in mind. The port-side cam showed the skiff still tumbling and spinning. The metal seemed to glow, but that could have just been the powerful floods glinting off the separated layers of Atmo-steel. No, he thought, it is glowing.
“Okay, sir,” Wendt said. “I’m going for a grab.”
“Be careful, marine,” Taulbee said. “If your rad meter goes off, get the fuck away from it.”
“Aye, sir,” Wendt said. Through the cannon’s cam, he watched Wendt push himself off the side of the SV-52 and float to the skiff, a tether line drifting behind like an uncoiling snake. The marine touched the skiff with his glove and mag-locked to the skiff. Suddenly, Wendt was spinning and tumbling with the damaged craft. However awkward it looked from here, Wendt must have been fighting the dizziness from all the flipping and turning. He mag-walked using his gloves, struggling to climb into the skiff and find the tether hole in the remaining gunwale.
It took more than two minutes for him to attach the tether. When he finally climbed out of the skiff, he returned to the SV-52 with a hand-over-hand glove walk across the moving and turning line. “Sir?” Wendt said. “My rad meters didn’t pop, but they definitely spiked.”
Taulbee nodded to himself. Residual radiation. If one blast had made the skiff that hot, albeit for a short time, how much of that energy was trapped in the deep bowels of Mira? Is that what was attracting the beasties? Not the beacon itself, but its saturation of the derelict’s hull?
Yet another reason to blow the bitch up, he thought.
“Sir?” Copenhaver said, “the skiff is still spinning, but the rotating pins on the tether are compensating.”
“Good,” he said, without really feeling relieved. This was only part of the exercise, and now that they knew the beacon was no longer attached, it also seemed pointless. But they were low on materials. If Nobel wanted to print a new skiff, or at least something they could use, they’d need all the Atmo-steel they could get.
He chuckled. They could always just blast Mira to pieces and take some small chunks to serve the same purpose. Then he thought of what they might be bringing back with them in the process, and stopped laughing. There was no telling what kind of hitchhikers they’d bring back with them.
Did these creatures have parasites? Viruses? Some new bacteria that lived in their, well, their insides? Did they really want to find out the hard way that the things could infect human beings?
Suddenly bringing the skiff back didn’t sound too wise either. If they found the beacon—No, when they found the beacon, he’d bring up the issue of infection. Until then, it was just another concern to file away in the SEP portion of his mind. SEP, of course, standing for “somebody else’s problem.”
“Wendt? You back on board and secure?”
“Aye, sir,” Wendt said. “Nearly threw up in my helmet, but I’m good.”
“Not surprised,” Taulbee said. “I believe Dickerson would call that being a rodeo clown.”
Wendt laughed. “Aye, sir. I bet he would. We’ll show him the cam recordings once we get him back.”
Get him back. Taulbee clicked his teeth together. Wendt had served with Dickerson for two years. From what the lieutenant had seen, the two men seemed to have instantly bonded, perhaps as strongly as Dickerson and Carb had. If we don’t get him back, Taulbee thought, this company may never have morale again.
Taulbee cut the SV-52’s speed and the tether’s slack quickly disappeared. “Hang on for a jolt!” he yelled into the comms. Two seconds later, the tether snapped taught. The thick Atmo-steel composite line flexed to weather the strain, but the SV-52 still jerked and shuddered as though a great force had stopped it in its tracks.
The skiff, the force of its movement mostly captured in the line’s flexion, danced backward toward the SV-52 before rising above it in an arc. Taulbee sent a block command to the controls and the tether line slowly ratcheted up the tension to bring the skiff into a stable position.
The two craft traveled at 20m/s now, the skiff a mere two meters from the SV-52’s aft. Taulbee exhaled a sigh. That was too damned close. The skiff could have flown back and smashed into the side and flattened one of his marines. Well, he thought, that would have capped off a perfectly shitty day.
With the skiff stabilized via the tow tether, he could relax a little. They had managed to accomplish step one of the mission. If only step two would be as simple as chasing down the equivalent of a flare floating in space.
“Okay, marines,” Taulbee said, doing his best to flush the unhelpful thoughts from his mind, “let’s find this beacon.”
“Um, sir?” Murdock said.
“Yes, Private?”
The young marine breathed heavily into the mic, practically panting. “Are the stars disappearing, or is it just me?”
Taulbee blinked. “What are you—?” His voice died as he flipped to the starboard cam. Sure enough, the darkness of space seemed…darker. The floodlights still painting the skiff’s tumbling form appeared to dim as though they were losing power.
“Oh, shit,” Wendt said. “Sir, we saw this when we got the beacon off Mira.”
Excitement warred with fear in his guts. “Everybody look for it. If you saw that phenomenon before, the beacon is probably near us.”
The comms fell silent as everyone studied the cam feeds. Wendt and Murdock’s helmet cams bounced and flowed as they scoured the space around them for signs of the strange device. Copenhaver spun the cannon in a slow 360° arc to cover as much area as she could.
Taulbee was flipping between the fore and port camera when Murdock yelled, “I see it!”
A marker appeared on Taulbee’s HUD. The beacon, at least Murdock thought it was the beacon, tumbled and spun some fifty meters away. The force of the explosion must have knocked it from the skiff, changing its trajectory and speed. All they’d had to do was wait for it to catch up. Although that wasn’t quite true either. It had somehow ended up at a negative vector from the skiff’s position and now it was floating by them far below the SV-52’s belly and heading further away every second.
“Copenhaver? Don’t lose that goddamned thing. Keep yourself zoomed in. Murdock? Wendt? Keep your heads on a swivel.”
“Aye, sir,” the replies rang back.
Taulbee used his block to calculate trajectory and relative distance. Whatever it was, it wasn’t showing up on radar or as a radiation source. But that had to be the beacon, didn’t it? With another command, he tightened the tow tether until the skiff mag-locked to the SV-52’s aft. He fed the program to the nav and fired the thrusters.
The SV-52 handled like a bucking bronco rather than a glider on ice. With the skiff practically part of the SV-52, the thruster controls were more sluggish than usual, resulting in both craft wobbling in space.
After a few more seconds, he managed to compensate for the additional mass and acclimated to the controls. He hoped he wouldn’t have to take evasive action anytime soon. Even a g of acceleration might be enough to break the mag-lock between the skiff and the SV-52.
The support craft was made to tow skiffs and other damaged vehicles, but that didn’t mean it was meant to happen during combat. That was for the dreaded “after” when you saw bloodstains in canopies, limp bodies hanging off of skiffs, their mag-boots or gloves the only thing keeping them attached and from floating off into space. After the Satellite War, finding a skiff with three or four limbs still attached was commonplace.
Another thruster burn and the SV-52 gently accelerated. The flight program fired additional bursts to keep the craft on a trajectory to meet the object. The beacon, he thought. It has to be the beacon.
With the craft pointed directly at the object, he now saw what Murdock had seen. Distant starlight wavered, disappeared, and reappeared as the shimmering object made its way through the twilight.
An interference field? he wondered. The beacon was surely designed by a superior intelligence, a sentient lifeform capable of creating a device that could travel through the universe for millennia, its power source strong enough to nearly destroy Mira, not to mention, wipe out an SFMC skiff. That kind of power couldn’t possibly lie in an object so small. Yet, it did.
Taulbee watched the starlight dramatically flicker, disappear, and return. With each meter the SV-52 traveled, the more obvious the shimmer became. Space itself seemed to waver as though waves of darkness pulsed from something hidden, something they couldn’t see.
But he could see it. The floodlights finally managed to break through the eerie darkness, although the illumination was so dim it might as well have been from a candle. The beacon appeared as little more than the outline of a dark silver polyhedron tumbling through space like a strange die rolled by an angry god.
Eyes still focused on the shape, he brought the SV-52 alongside the beacon. As the craft closed the distance to the object, the floodlights further dimmed. Static lines appeared on his HUD and the displays blinked out twice before returning. His HUD lit up with radiation warnings, although the rad count was still well within tolerance. Especially for Wendt and Murdock.
“Okay, Copenhaver. You’re on net duty. Let’s grab it and get the hell out of here.”
“Aye, sir,” she said.
Taulbee brought the SV-52 a little closer and the rad count immediately elevated to yellow and continued rising. He flipped to the cannon cam and saw Copenhaver lining up the shot. Although it should have been an easy net and grab, the shimmering and waving space around the beacon made it difficult to target. Copenhaver sighed into the mic, took a deep breath, and fired the net.
The Atmo-steel net flew true and collapsed around the beacon. Another radiation alert hit his HUD. The beacon was producing more rads now.
“Success, sir,” Copenhaver said.
“Okay,” Taulbee said. “Private, don’t bring that thing any closer to us. Wendt? Keep an eye on the net. Whatever you do, don’t get close to the beacon. That goes for you too, Murdock.” A chorus of affirmatives filled his ears.
“Now the hard part,” he said aloud. Using the side cam, he judged how far the beacon would sway in the net once he began changing speed. When he was sure he wouldn’t slingshot the net hard enough for it to bounce back at the craft, he nudged the rear thrusters. A few hits on the attitude jets and the SV-52 rotated to face S&R Black. The SV-52 was still flying away from the ship, but now that he had the net behind him, he could accelerate. He didn’t waste time. After warning his marines, he punched the rear thrusters for a two-second burn.
The SV-52 slowed, halted for an instant, and began picking up speed in the opposite direction. “Taulbee to Dunn.”
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, we have the beacon. The rad count is out of the normal range, but still not lethal. However, I don’t think I want to bring this thing into the cargo bay.”
“Copy, Taulbee. Agreed. Nobel?”
“Aye, sir?”
Dunn paused for the briefest instant as though he were considering multiple courses of action. “Can you get the sled out of the cargo bay?”
Nobel chuckled. “I have two marines here that need something to do.”
Taulbee couldn’t help but smile. He imagined both Carb and Kalimura were more than a little pissed off they weren’t out here. Even as injured as the two marines were, the pair would jump at the chance to do something besides sit it all out.
“Good,” Dunn said.
The captain’s voice had no warmth or mirth in it and the deadpan delivery left Taulbee a little concerned. Dunn would have normally sounded happy, or at least relieved. Instead, he sounded clipped and short, a good sign that something had gone very very wrong, but he wasn’t yet willing to share it.
“Nobel? Get the sled out there. Have it tethered on our belly, but I want it a good fifteen meters from the hull. Understood?”
“Aye, sir.” The joviality had left Nobel’s voice. He had obviously picked up the same vibe Taulbee had. “I’ll handle it.”
“What’s your ETA, Taulbee?”
“Two minutes, sir.”
“Understood,” Dunn said. “Let’s make it happen, marines. Time’s wasting.”
You mean our chances to recover Dickerson are thinning, Taulbee thought. Or our chances of getting the hell out of here. At least they had the beacon now and none of his squad had suffered injury. That was something. Now all they had to do—
A proximity alert hit his HUD. A group of red triangles appeared before his eyes. Three more objects were making their way to Mira and the new arrivals were going to fly very near S&R Black. “Void wept,” Taulbee muttered.
Dunn’s voice spoke over the private comms. “You see them?”
“Aye, sir,” he said. “What are they?”
The captain’s breath hitched slightly. “More of the same. We think. But these are larger than the last batch.”
“They changing course at all?”
“No,” Dunn said. “Making a bee-line for Mira. With any luck, they’ll pass right by us.”
“Acknowledged, sir.”
Dunn paused for a moment. “Get here as fast as you can. If they change course and get between you and us, do whatever you have to do to survive. If you have to cut the beacon or the skiff, do it. I’m not losing anyone else today.”
“Understood, sir,” Taulbee said.
“Good hunting, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir. Taulbee out.”
The three markers on the HUD remained on their course. Good. He fired another thruster burn and the SV-52 reached 45m/s. Just a few kilometers away, S&R Black looked like shadowy salvation, its running lights bravely blazing in the Kuiper’s twilight.
“All right, marines,” he said over the squad comms. “We have some company up ahead. Hopefully, they’ll ignore us, but in case they don’t, be ready.”
With each passing second, S&R Black loomed larger, but so did the giant hulk behind it. Shapes flittered through the shadows near Mira, mere amorphous forms with no detail. They could have been starfish, pinecones, or whatever those new creatures were. Taulbee glared at the dead giant metal beast, willing it to disappear back to where it came and take all of its new friends with it. But that wasn’t going to happen. A grin slowly spread across his face. Not yet, he thought. Not fucking yet.
Another wave of static rolled across his HUD. A glance through the cams showed the skiff still attached and the netted beacon floating beneath it. A radiation alert pulsed for a few ticks before disappearing. The rad meters had spiked and then dropped, although the spike was still well within both the suit and shielding tolerance. One thing for sure, he wasn’t bringing the beacon aboard S&R Black. No fucking way.
Something flew past the canopy and disappeared, leaving his heart galloping in his chest. “Anyone see that?”
Murdock answered in a timid,
shaking voice. “Aye, sir. But I have no idea what it was.”
“Copenhaver?” Taulbee said.
“No, sir,” she said. “I didn’t see anything. I’ll scan.”
“Do that,” he said.
Taulbee tried to focus his attention on flying the craft back to Black, but he couldn’t help flipping through the cam feeds. Whatever that had been, it had been moving damned fast. Maybe even faster than the creatures that had flown at Mira like a flock of alien birds.
“Got it, sir,” Copenhaver said. “Seven of them.” She sounded both excited and terrified. “They’re huge!”
“What’s their speed?” Taulbee asked.
“About 200m/s. They’re damned fast.”
“Where did they go, Private?”
She was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, the excitement had been replaced with desperate fear. “They keep circling us, sir. Keeping their distance so far, but their formation is tightening.”
“Wendt? Murdock? Do not shoot at those things unless they get close. Copenhaver? If they close on us, give them something to think about.”
“Aye, sir.”
He switched to the command channel. “Captain? We have a problem.”
“What is it, Taulbee?”
“We have some friends following us.”
There was a long pause. “Okay. We see them,” Dunn said. “When you get close enough to offload, we’re going to fire another CO2 round and see if we can get their attention.”
“Sir? I’m not bringing this beacon aboard.”
“No, you’re not,” the captain agreed. “Just get in close and we’ll figure it out.”
“Aye, sir. Out.” He thought for a moment. 1.5km to the ship. At present speed, that meant he had less than a minute to figure this out. Copenhaver had sent his HUD an animation of the creatures’ flight path. The new hostiles were indeed circling the SV-52, but with elliptical paths that intersected a few meters apart. The seven lifeforms didn’t fly in formation, but rather a tightening 3-D noose. If he stared long enough at one of the cams, he was sure to catch a glimpse of their dark bodies against the Kuiper Belt’s wan light.
Derelict_Destruction Page 34
