“Oh, shit,” Taulbee muttered. “Squad! Bottom hull! Midships!”
“Copy,” Kali said.
“Private? You see it move, fire on it,” Taulbee said. “Let me know if I need to descend.”
“Aye, sir. Drop two meters.”
Taulbee didn’t question. When your gunner said to give them room, you did it, regardless of rank. A deft touch of the controls and a thruster fired. The SV-52 accelerated quickly and stopped just as fast. His view of S&R Black’s hull was more broad now and he could finally see what he’d feared.
Four starfish floated mere centimeters from the ship’s keel. The creatures’ arms had folded around their cores, making them look like polyhedron dice. Their strange shells vibrated in the light like heat haze off metal. Unlike the other starfish they’d encountered, the stowaways’ arms pulsed with color, making their skin fade from a dark, wavering gray to an impossible black.
“Sir? I have a shot.”
“Copy.” Taulbee’s spine crawled just looking at the damned things. The memories of their silvery acidic excretions and their powerful arms, strong enough to fling Atmo-steel flechettes at him like throwing stars, flipped through his mind. And instead of just one, there were four of them, each much larger than the last one he’d fought.
But they weren’t moving. They just floated there, wrapped in their armor as if waiting for something. Maybe they were waiting for the humans to attack. Or something else?
“Kalimura? What’s your status?”
A few seconds passed before she spoke, her words clipped and cold. “Carb and Murdock are almost in position to start their climb.”
“Fuck the climb,” Taulbee said. “Suit thrusters. Cut that line ASAP.”
*****
Carb and Murdock had reached the tow lines. On the way there, the squad had come across several more patches of the deadly, glistening leavings from the starfish creatures. Kali and Wendt spread out to cover their squad-mates who began descending down the lines. If the ship had to move quickly, Carb and Murdock were the most vulnerable to fast shifts in the z-g. They could have used the suit thrusters, but if the ship had to EVA for any reason, it could either collide with them or leave them vulnerable to emergency rocket activation.
The plan was simple enough. Carb and Murdock would go down, release the sled from the net, and position it with Black and Nobel’s assistance. Getting it pointed in roughly the right direction would allow the sled to reach maximum acceleration without having to first adjust the sled’s attitude during flight.
Once they finished the job, the two marines would ride the net back to the hull, join up with their squad-mates, and get their asses back inside the ship. Simple. Right.
As the pair reached the halfway point, Kali’s HUD lit up with a proximity warning. An arm appeared at the end of the tether, its sharp point glistening in the floodlights. It seemed to caress the sled inside the net. Kali heard Carb take a deep breath.
“Corporal?”
“I see it,” Kali said. The last word died on her lips as another arm appeared a meter away. Taulbee yelled at her to cut the line.
“Understood, sir. However, we have a bit of a problem. We have two possible bogies on the sled.”
Taulbee groaned. “I don’t give a shit, Corporal. Cut that line and get back inside the ship. Now.”
“Aye, sir,” Kali said with a wince. “Carb? Murdock? We’re cutting the lines. Suit thrusters are authorized. Repeat. Use your damned thrusters!”
Murdock moved to detach himself from the line and stopped dead. Mere centimeters away, silvery ooze glistened against the cable’s dark Atmo-steel surface.
“Freeze!” Kali called over the line, but he already had. The cam feed from his helmet barely twitched. “Unhook very carefully and use your fore thrusters to blast away from the line.”
“Copy,” he said, his voice vibrating with tension.
“Carb?”
“I’m free,” Carb said. “I’ll help—”
“No, you won’t. Get back here. Now.”
“But—”
“Do it!” Kali yelled. She kept her eyes glued to Murdock’s cam, watching as he carefully unhooked from the cable tether and quickly pulled back his arm. With his other hand, the one much further away from the silvery glaze, he gently pushed.
Murdock rose away from the cable meter by meter before engaging his thrusters. “On my way, Corporal,” Murdock said.
She flipped back to her helmet cam feed and looked down the line at Carb. The LCpl was using her thrusters and following the cable back to the hull. Kali watched her climb further and further over the sled. Three starfish, their carapaces scattering the light in radiating waves, contracted around the sled, arms crossing and clutching at the net itself.
“Sir? They’re wrapped around the net.”
“Cut the line. We’ll worry about that in a minute. Just get your—”
Another creature appeared atop the mound of starfish, stubby fins that waved in a silent rhythm jutted from its squat body. Long arms, ends tipped with triangles of some glinting material, probed the space around them as if searching. The new creature rose above the sled, its large mandibles clicking and clacking together without making any sound in the vacuum. As they moved, she saw the deep hole that was its maw, a ring of serrated teeth vibrating in the light.
The mouth moved quickly forward and a line of silver shot out of the darkness. Kali cut her mag-locks and hit her thrusters at the same time. She lost contact with the hull and flew to port. A meter away, the liquid excretion hit the hull in a puddle, the droplets sticking to the Atmo-steel rather than dispersing in the z-g.
Kali aimed her rifle and fired. The tritium flechette round left the barrel and streaked towards its target as the rocket engine kicked in. The creature tried to duck, but the round hit the side of its horrible face, its mandibles disappearing in a bright blue flash of light.
The creature tumbled away into the z-g, half of its head gone. The creatures surrounding the net stirred slightly. She thought droplets of the heavy water had probably hit their shells. Either that or they knew their exo-solar fellow had been killed.
“Get out of there!” Taulbee shrieked over the comms.
“Squad!” Kali yelled. “Retreat!”
Kali sent a block command to the tow controls and the net released at once. The sled slowly moved away, its own momentum slowed by the magnetic force of the net pushing it out.
She turned and realized she was on the wrong side of the ship. The emergency airlock was on the starboard-side, not the port. She kicked on the thrusters and shot upwards, her rifle pointed at the sled. She rose meter by meter in a controlled ascent, her fingers flexing around the trigger guard, daring the creatures to move again.
After a few meters, she began to relax. The three visible starfish encasing the sled hadn’t moved again. Were they worshiping it? Or drawing energy from the beacon?
Something moved below her. Kali looked down and saw a dim outline in the shadows. Ethereal arms swayed and danced with alien grace. Another shadow appeared. And still another. Kali fired her fore thrusters as the creatures jetted up to meet her. She had time to snap aim and fire a round at each of them, the rifle moving with her arms as though they were one.
The flechettes detonated seven meters from her, the shards of Atmo-steel breaking through the creatures’ shells and spraying particles of black material in all directions. An arm whipped upward a mere meter from her boots. Kali fired her chest thrusters and darted backward, her feet just missing the lip of the hull intersection. She increased her speed to 2m/s and continued flying backward, her mind alertly flicking between the rear cam and the creatures in front of her. The danger of ramming into something behind her wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the creatures now climbing or floating to follow her.
There was no way of knowing if these were the same creatures that had been gathered around the beacon. And it didn’t matter. Now she had four bogies to deal with.
�
�Kalimura!” Taulbee yelled. “Status!”
“Line cut,” she said. “I repeat, sled is free.”
“Copy,” Taulbee said. “We’re having some fun on the keel.”
The ship shuddered as if to accentuate his statement.
“Squad!” Kali called out. “Status?”
“Boss,” Carb said. “We’re at the airlock. Where the hell are you?’
“Stuck topside. I have a few friends to deal with.”
“I’ll come get you,” Wendt said.
“Negative. Get inside the ship,” Kali snarled. “That’s an order.”
The pause was more than long enough to give the creatures the chance to close in. She might be moving at 2m/s, but they were accelerating toward her. And void wept, but they could move. The creatures knew about the rifles. Either one encounter with a flechette was enough for them to understand the danger, or they communicated with one another. Either way, the creatures practically danced in the z-g.
“Copy, Boss,” Carb said. “Entering the cargo bay. Good hunting, Corporal.”
Kali almost said “thank you.” What she really wanted to say was for them to get the hell out here and save their damned corporal. Kali snapped her teeth together and banished the fear. If she was going to die, she was going to go down shooting.
She fired four flechettes in rapid succession, each of the rounds timed to match the pattern the creatures had shown. They moved in half-meter slides and jumps, but always ended up in a formation of sorts. It wasn’t consistent, but it was enough for this.
The creature on the far left danced right into the round, the flechettes shattering four arms and cutting a ragged semi-circle through the creature’s torso. The second round flew through a gap and disappeared into space while the last two rounds hit the same creature with devastating results. The flechettes ripped through its shell, scattering particles and alien flesh in all directions. But she’d missed one. It had flown backward, either having sensed the impending attack, or it had reflexes the likes of which she couldn’t imagine.
As it moved backward, she saw what was behind it. More of them. And more of them. “Captain?”
“Corporal? Are you in the cargo bay?”
“No, sir,” she said. “But I wish I was.”
*****
The four creatures slowly unfolded themselves, their arms pointed directly at the SV-52. The radiating waves of darkness slowed, but the pulsing colors around their bodies began speeding up. Taulbee pushed the SV-52 and cleared S&R Black’s keel.
“Sir?” Copenhaver called. “We’re going to hit the sled.”
Cursing, he hit the thrusters hard, taking them at a negative vector from the ship and her ejected cargo. At the same time, he changed their attitude to point back at the ship. The creatures reached S&R Black’s aft and cleared it with a sweep of their strange arms.
“Private? Fire.”
She did. A short stair step of flechette rounds streaked from the cannon. Most of the shots missed, detonating on the ship’s hull, but a few struck.
Arcs of electricity danced over their shells. One of them burst apart while another just flailed silently in space.
While he swept the area, looking for targets, he checked in with Kalimura. “Are you in the cargo bay?”
“No,” she said and muttered something else.
He brought up her cam feed on his HUD. “Fuck. Me. Just don’t die, Kalimura. We’re coming.”
He gave the ‘52’s thrusters a push and the craft quickly accelerated back the way it had come. Kalimura was topside and floating toward the bow. With a thought, he brought up her location on the ship and fed the coordinates to the flight computer. A path immediately appeared on his HUD. Taulbee continued hitting the thrusters in sequence, following the flowing rectangles on the screen. As he half-looped over Black’s topside, Copenhaver aimed and opened fire.
A dozen flechettes flew and exploded between the floating figure and the shadowy things chasing her. Two more of the creatures blew apart, but the rest continued their pursuit as if nothing had happened. Kali was firing too, but the things moved fast enough to evade her shots.
“Sir? Bogies on our six.”
“Where the hell are they coming from?”
Proximity alerts flashed on his HUD. He barely had time to pull at the controls before they disappeared entirely. Whatever had been about to attack had pulled away. On the ship’s topside, he watched as three of the creatures swam through the emptiness and away from Kalimura.
“Shit, sir,” Copenhaver said.
“What?”
He turned his head and blinked. A cloud of CO2 drifted from the port-side outlets. Dark shadows flew toward it, some crashing into one another in their scramble to reach it.
“Kalimura? It’s your lucky day,” Taulbee said. He reoriented the SV-52 and pushed past S&R Black’s bow. “Copenhaver. Net the corporal.”
“Aye, sir,” Copenhaver said. A moment later, Kalimura was in the net, and he was flying for the cargo bay.
“Lieutenant,” Dunn said. “Get your ass in here ASAP.”
“Sir? What about the beacon?”
“Get in the ship. Now.”
“Aye, sir,” Taulbee said. The CO2 cloud that had puffed out of the ship was probably dissipating, or maybe the creatures were consuming it. Either way, it wasn’t going to last long. If nothing was between him and the cargo bay, he’d be there in seconds. He hoped his luck would hold.
*****
Jacked into S&R Black’s systems, he’d already seen the creatures. Well, see was the wrong word. Nobel had really detected them by monitoring temperature fluctuations along the ship’s keel. He’d first thought of the idea during their last battle, but hadn’t had time to implement it. Between rescuing Kalimura, destroying Mira, and getting them under extreme thrust, he’d been a little busy.
But it was quite simple, really. The S&R models had all been built for simplified maintenance as well as diagnostics. If their AIs died during battle or some other calamity, the command crew still maintained control of all responsibilities for its functions. Well, close to it anyway. He’d simply run a diagnostic check.
During refits, one of the last three hull integrity tests involved checks for Atmo-steel bonding weaknesses. Since S&R Black’s hull had been printed using older techniques, it was possible for micro-deformities to appear after enough real-world abuse. As the metal bands began to separate, the shielding layer went first.
If one appeared during the next ship’s inspection, they cut, patched, reprinted, and hoped they didn’t find another next time. And so on. By running the hull temperature check, he’d spotted the creatures as spikes in temperature.
In a way, that should have been no surprise. To create radioactivity as high as those things did, they should have an elevated temperature in the near absolute-zero environment of space. The closer they came to the hull, the higher the reading. Only problem? He had to repeatedly burst the diagnostic. And it was starting to be a problem.
He’d promised himself to scan only 10 more times when it happened. As soon as he did, he activated the new program, priming the pumps for a waste release. The moment after Mira’s destruction, he’d raised the CO2 filter buffer size, building up an excess of CO2 in the tanks. The multiple thrust burns during their acceleration phase had certainly resulted in the crew breathing harder, faster, using up more O2 and expelling more CO2.
Watching through all the sensors at once, he and Black adjusted the output, making sure to seed the port-side aft with a cloud guaranteed to get the creatures’ attention. And it had.
The things moved as one toward the cloud. Even the creatures surrounding the beacon moved and jittered as though fighting the temptation. When the supply of stored CO2 exhausted itself, the creatures began batting at the hull as if begging for more. Nobel grinned.
He watched through the ship’s cameras as the cargo bay door opened and the SV-52 flew inside at a nearly suicidal speed. Taulbee hit the bulkhead a little harder
than usual, but the damage would be minimal to both the craft and Black.
Nobel deactivated the cargo bay door safeties and it slid into place three times its normal speed. He reengaged the safeties and immediately pressurized the cargo bay.
Seconds later, Kalimura’s squad was getting her detached from the ‘52 while Taulbee and Copenhaver cleared the canopy. But Nobel had stopped watching,
He and Black saw through the same interfaces, but monitored different aspects, coming to agreements as fast as his brain could keep up. The creatures wrapped around the beacon had caused the sled to slowly spin. As long as they didn’t stop or change the cycle, their calculation would work. It was all about timing. They found an optimal trajectory with minimal attitude adjustment and waited together for nanoseconds to see if their guess was right.
It was. The sled’s rockets came to life and the slab of Atmo-steel quickly accelerated while the attitude thrusters burned to correct its course. With the sled streaking off toward Pluto, and their supply of free food exhausted, the creatures followed in its wake.
Nobel watched in fascination as the alien things retreated into the Kuiper Belt’s deep shadows, floating like misshapen, nightmarish ghosts. He ran another diagnostic sweep over the ship. No hotspots. They were as clear as they could be for the moment.
And he needed a break, damnit. But not now, not yet.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Snug in the acceleration couch, Dickerson could hardly move. The escape pod’s rockets continued firing every few seconds, keeping the capsule under thrust and at half a g of acceleration. He hadn’t realized just how much pain he was in until the g-forces had time to work on his tired muscles, bruised flesh, and broken bones.
The throbbing in his chest and shoulder told him his nannies had finally run out of cannabidiol, THC, and analgesics. He literally had nothing left in the tank. He considered moving, finding the emergency aid kit, and doing what he could to lessen the pain, but it seemed more trouble than it was worth. He’d had worse. Hell, he’d fought with worse. Right now, he was just tired. In pain, sure, but mainly tired.
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