Derelict_Destruction

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Copy,” Taulbee said. “Captain? What do you want us to do?”

  “Dock immediately. We can’t waste any more time.”

  “Aye, sir. Kalimura? Get your people out of the way. We’re coming in.”

  “Aye, sir.” She switched to the squad channel. “You heard the LT. Move your asses.”

  While Murdock and Wendt cleared the area reserved for the SV-52, she and Carb took positions on either side of the cargo bay door. If something else decided to pay a visit, she’d make sure it departed shy a few limbs.

  The SV-52 returned a few seconds later and Taulbee expertly maneuvered it into place. Once he was clear of the door, it began to close. Neither Carb nor Kali moved from their positions until the hatch finally shut, sealing them off from the vacuum of space and the hostiles outside.

  The grav-plates hummed to life and atmosphere poured into the cargo bay. After a brief moment, her HUD finally announced it was safe to remove her helmet. “Squad. Get rearmed and provisioned. Be prepared to get out there again at a moment’s notice.”

  “Aye, Boss,” Carb and Wendt said. Murdock called her corporal, opting for the less familiar address. Kali smiled to herself. Before long, he’d be talking like the rest of them. Assuming he lived past this mission, that was.

  Shit. Assuming any of us do.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Still wearing his combat suit, Dunn sat in the command chair, his eyes flicking from one holo display to another. The creatures had tightened their flying patterns around Mira’s shattered aft. He imagined that if he sent out the SV-52 to scout the derelict’s bow, it would be completely clear of the creatures.

  He initiated a connection with Black and the AI immediately accepted it. Yes, Captain?

  They’re forming around the aft.

  Yes, Captain. The lifeforms, all types that we have seen thus far, appear to be conglomerating in that area. Even more curious is the fact the predators seemed to have ceased being predators. The pinecones, starfish, and the others are cohabitating without attacking one another.

  He shook his head. What the hell are they doing?

  I do not have enough information to offer an educated guess.

  He rolled his eyes. Then make an uneducated one.

  Yes, Captain. I believe the continued blasts inside Mira have left a long-lasting impression in its Atmo-steel. The last blast that occurred inside it before Gunnery Sergeant Cartwright’s squad recovered the beacon may have been more powerful than the previous ones. Enough to get the attention of all the lifeforms that inhabit Mira. The behavior of the new arrivals that wrapped around the skiff further props up that hypothesis.

  Dunn leaned back in the chair, his hands behind his head. Blowing up Mira. Do you still believe that is the correct course?

  Black paused for a moment before replying. Although I do not have all the facts, my simulations, based on behavioral observation, give a 70% chance that the destruction of Mira will scatter the lifeforms. Without a safe haven, it is likely they will hone in on the beacon and follow it.

  So that’s a ‘yes.’

  Black seemed embarrassed. Yes, Captain. It is still the recommended course of action.

  Dunn nodded and broke the connection. He thought for a moment before leaning forward in the command chair. “Oakes, bring our starboard-side directly parallel to Mira’s aft. Black, how’s our ammo supply?”

  “We still have a number of CO2 warheads as well as the neutrino type. Standard ammunition will have to do once we exhaust our supply.”

  “Understood.”

  Oakes cleared his throat. “We’re underway, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Taulbee to the bridge,” Dunn said over the ship-wide comms. “Marines? Prepare for multi-g acceleration.”

  Dunn flicked his eyes back to the holo displays. Four more KBOs had shown up. Black and PEO had missed their approach, but they were here now. He’d little doubt they were breaking apart and headed to the aft just like the rest.

  He heard the clunk of grav-boots on the Atmo-steel deck and couldn’t help but grin.

  “Here, sir,” Taulbee said from behind him.

  Dunn rotated his chair to stare at his XO. Dark stains covered the visible collar of his jumpsuit. “Good work, James.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Taulbee said, his face still as stone.

  “Seeing as how Gunny is currently unavailable, I’d like you to do me a favor.”

  Taulbee cocked his head. “And what would that be, sir?”

  A venomous grin spread across Dunn’s face. “Take fire control.”

  Taulbee growled low in his throat before saluting. “My pleasure, sir.”

  *****

  Nobel stood in the closed cargo bay with his back against the aft-bulkhead, the anti-rad suit still clothing his sweating body. Once the cargo bay hatch had closed and he’d checked for casualties, both mechanical and physical, he’d headed to this position. What he needed was focus, a place least likely to take damage, and most likely to need immediate repair if it was. Besides, this spot? Heavily armored. Chances of him getting taken out? Well, the void-damned ship would be in two pieces anyway. Somehow that thought didn’t make him feel any better.

  Jacked into Black and the ship’s component systems, he’d be the first to know of an impending attack and immediately estimate possible damage and what to do. When under fire, it was part of his job. SFMC still didn’t trust combat AIs to use the best judgment, but that didn’t mean they should be ignored either. Using the block to communicate and monitor in tandem left the two to have pico-second discussions, come to an agreement, and execute it. Nobel’s opinion always won if there was disagreement and it left him very little time to react.

  Without being fully interfaced, it would be impossible. The block processors assisted the speed of thought, effectively decreasing the time it took to digest input and apply his gut instincts to decision making. Taulbee was probably jacked into the fire controls in the same manner.

  That was usually Gunny’s job. Nobel couldn’t help but wince at the thought of seeing the old marine lying unconscious with a brain hemorrhage inside a void-damned autodoc. And he might be in that accursed thing until they reached Neptune, or he could just die without ever waking up, without ever knowing if his marines made it out alive.

  “Dunn to Nobel.”

  “Go, sir.”

  “We’re in position.”

  He smiled. “Copy, sir. Black and I are ready.”

  “Acknowledged. Good hunting.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The cam feeds dumped into his visual cortex so he could monitor each of the visual sensors. Mira had steadily come into view from bow to stern as Oakes moved the ship to dead center of the aft. It took nearly a minute to get into the right attitude affording him time to watch the change. The bow had been devoid of any creatures. No pinecones, no starfish, none of the recently arrived. All he saw was the fatigued Atmo-steel, the scars of micro-meteor strikes, and the occasional ripped hull plate.

  When the ship had finally come to a stop, he was able to see just how badly the infestation had spread. Mira’s aft section was impossible to see now. It was as if the giant ship had held additional hordes beyond imagination, or the creatures were breeding, and reproducing at an incredible rate. The further aft you looked, the more there were, piled atop one another like layers of shifting and sliding sediment.

  His skin prickled as if with electricity, but it wasn’t from excitement. It was terror. Where had these things come from? And how the hell were they going to fight that many? They were nearly out of the special ammo already.

  “Suicide,” he mumbled aloud.

  Lieutenant, Black’s voice broke through the clutter of thoughts like a hammer. I sense distress.

  Well, he thought to himself, at least that prickling feeling is gone. It was true. A flush of embarrassment had all but driven away the fear itself. He didn’t like the new AI and its words stoked another emotion as well: anger. How the fuck could anyone f
ace this shit and not be “distressed?”

  I’m fine, Black, he replied through the connection.

  Very good, Lieutenant.

  Her words had that flavor of warmth and happiness, as if she were enjoying this. Or, he considered, she might just be glad to know you’re pulling your shit together. His face twisted into a reluctant grin. For a moment there, he’d almost believed it was true. No. It’s a goddamned program they run when they sense their humans are near panic.

  Sure. That was it.

  Nobel breathed deep, doing his best to get the ice back in veins. Just like the Satellite War. You survived that, you’ll survive this.

  “Taulbee to Nobel.”

  “Here, sir,” he said.

  “Fire control is ready. I’m going to start the sequence in five seconds from my mark.”

  Taulbee seemed more than a little excited. He sounded like an executioner getting ready to drop the axe on the most loathsome human being he’d ever met. Nobel had never heard that tone in the man’s voice before. Well, Mira had it coming.

  “Copy, sir. On your mark.”

  Another few seconds passed, as he knew they would. The captain would definitely want to check everything over once more. They had that luxury. Once Taulbee let loose the missiles, the guns, and the flechette cannons, Mira’s ass was going to cease to exist. And when that happened?

  Nobel shuddered again. He already had an evasive maneuvers program set and ready, and he and Black would make changes as they went, dumping plans and replacing them with other presets, modifying, inserting commands on the fly, whatever it took to keep the ship ahead of those things if they decided to attack.

  Or if they follow the beacon, he thought.

  “Dunn to crew. Condition 1. I repeat, Condition 1. Be prepared for hard burn. Fire control? Fire at will.”

  As Dunn’s words filtered into his ears, he had time to run two more status checks. Everything was still green. They were ready. This was it. It was time.

  “Mark,” Taulbee’s voice said.

  *****

  The ship shuddered, but it was nearly imperceptible to Taulbee. He watched the cam feeds as magnetic pulses pushed three missiles from the launchers. Once the projectiles reached a five-meter distance from the hull, their rockets kicked in. The trio of tritium warheads streaked across the darkness with tails of brilliant blue flame. A second later, they met the creatures on Mira’s hull.

  With the cams zoomed in, he could see from the great ship’s belly to her topside. Taulbee watched with a grim smile as large clumps of the pulsing, moving horde found themselves engulfed in an explosion of heavy water and flechettes. Clouds of limbs, carapaces, mandibles, and void knew what other kinds of debris, puffed away from the impact sites.

  The missiles shouldn’t have done much damage to the hull, but they had. Giant tears appeared in the Atmo-steel hull plates. Some shattered and opened great, misshapen holes in the already ravaged aft. Inside Mira, something pulsed with colors so unnatural, they hurt his mind.

  Before he had time to reconsider firing the other salvo, his fingers had already done the work. Two ship-buster missiles, essentially high-yield, low-kiloton nukes, burst from the last launchers. As their rocket engines kicked in, Taulbee said aloud, “For you, Gunny.”

  The universe around him disappeared in a flare of white light. The visual filters dampened the blinding flash, but that didn’t keep the afterimage from appearing behind his eyes. As it slowly faded, he was able to see the damage. And it was still happening.

  The nukes busted through the fragile hull plates, entered the interior of the engineering bay, and detonated with their payloads. That had been the plan. With the ship in such bad shape, Black had calculated their ship-busters could effectively cut Mira’s aft section from the rest of the ship. He didn’t realize it would affect all of it.

  The shockwave from the nukes sent a rippling cascade of energy down every piece of Atmo-steel even as the heat melted and twisted the already-distressed metal. The separating layers of Atmo-steel unzipped into strips of ultra-thin metal. The ripple and cascade ate the midships before it hit the bow. Once it reached there, it slowed and finally stopped, leaving 1/3 of the fore section spinning and tumbling into space. Widening cones of debris vomited from the sliced bow section.

  Mira had effectively been destroyed. Taulbee had a second to enjoy the sight before alarms flashed across his HUD. He blinked and retrained his focus back to where the giant ship had once been. The stars were going out, disappearing. No. There was one. Then it was gone again. Finally, with a growing sense of horror, he realized what he was looking at.

  The creatures, the survivors, had massed together into an impossibly black cloud. And it was growing. And growing. Taulbee heard the captain tell Nobel to “punch it.” Then he was pushed into his acceleration couch as if by the universe itself.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The ship’s fusion engines came to a life with a vibration that rattled his bones. Oakes sank back into his couch as the multi-g acceleration hit the marines full bore. He switched to block communication only, speech being nearly impossible with his mouth open and cheeks stretched backward.

  “Oakes to Dunn,” he said over the block.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, first acceleration burn will be complete in another thirty seconds.”

  “Understood,” Dunn said. “Keep me apprised.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Apprised. What a strange word to use. Dunn should have said, “Let me know if we’re about to blow up.” Shit. The captain could see the reports himself in real time. Why did he want to be “apprised?”

  Oakes flipped to Black’s rear camera feed. As soon as the munitions had reached Mira and left her in shattered pieces, he’d fired up the maneuvering engines and changed their course to face Pluto. When the creatures, no longer in possession of their home, flooded outward like a hungry wave of darkness, he’d punched the engines to provide a full burn.

  The ship roared through space, slowly picking up speed as the fusion engines belched excited gas and heat in flares of energy, but that didn’t mean they were leaving the creatures behind. No sir.

  That tidal wave of flailing limbs, pulsing carapaces, and acid-spitting creatures formed up behind them like a plague. It shot forward toward the ship, or maybe toward the beacon, at a speed he didn’t think possible.

  Mira had still been traveling at a good clip on a course for Pluto. That meant the creatures had started out at that speed, as had S&R Black. But accelerating from that speed took power and a lot of it, at least for something of S&R Black’s size. The creatures, on the other hand, appeared to have greater speed than he’d considered possible. Not to mention, they had a lot less mass to move.

  But that wasn’t all, was it? The tsunami wave of exo-solar lifeforms had collapsed upon itself like a black hole. A misshapen sphere of alien malevolence, alien hunger, followed the ship no more than half a kilometer behind. The worst part? Oakes wasn’t making the lead he thought he would.

  Instead, the creatures seemed to be accelerating faster than S&R Black. But that wouldn’t last. How could it?

  Not for the first time, he wondered where these things came from. And more importantly, was there a goal? An endgame for them? Was the beacon something they were protecting, or just following because it flashed them with light, maybe some signal human technology couldn’t detect? And why did the Trio really want them to plant the beacon on Pluto?

  Too many questions, he thought. Also? He needed to focus on the burn. Another 10 seconds and they’d reach cruising speed. He’d have to bump it a few more times in the next hour so they could catch Dickerson. He sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to slow down too much; otherwise, the creatures might catch up. He didn’t want to think about what they’d do to the ship if they did manage to overtake her.

  The acceleration burn came to an end, the pressure on his spine quickly decreasing. A few seconds later, he was able to lean forward again, cra
ck his back, and get back to the controls.

  “Attention, crew,” he said. “First burn is finished. Next burn is scheduled for 20 minutes from now.”

  “Thank you,” Dunn said. “Keep her steady. And find that escape pod. I want Dickerson back on board as soon as possible.”

  “Aye, sir,” Oakes said. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow. He thought of everything he’d seen over the past several hours, a span of time that felt more like eons rather than hundreds of minutes. They were on the precipice of getting the fuck out of the deep Kuiper Belt and away from this madness. Weren’t they?

  *****

  Dunn stared at the holo displays, a look of both wonder and worry etched upon his already well-lined face. Taulbee and his squads—“squad,” Dunn corrected himself—were still in the cargo bay. The marines were probably rehydrating, refueling their suits, and getting some chow. Maybe even some sleep.

  Sleep was sometimes the most difficult provision to procure. SFMC personnel on “real” duty learned to sleep standing up, mag-locked to bulkheads or the deck, and were trained to snap into action at a single comm command. Considering how battered Kalimura and Carbonaro were, he hoped for their sake they were getting some Zs.

  As for Taulbee himself? No telling.

  Dunn could have peeked at the cargo bay feed, but felt no need. It was Taulbee’s squad. His people. Well, they were all Dunn’s people, certainly, but Taulbee was their direct commander. Even more so now that Gunny was incapacitated.

  “Sir?” Taulbee’s voice broke across block comms.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I have a proposition, sir. Since we don’t know how long Gunny will be out, I suggest Corporal Kalimura take over his position for now.”

  Dunn raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t even considered that Taulbee needed someone to coordinate the fire teams if they had to deploy all the marines.

  “Is she well enough?”

  Taulbee paused. “I think so, sir. I’ll ask, of course, but I wanted to get your opinion.”

  Dunn leaned back in his couch, a gentle smile on his face. “She went into hell with three marines, came back with two, and we’re going to pick up the third. I’d say she’s got the backbone for it and I think it’s an excellent decision.”