Dunn, startled, nearly fell off the crate. “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“Sir,” Oakes said, his voice tinged with concern, “I’m picking up some strange readings from inside Mira.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Elaborate, Oakes.”
“Well, sir,” Oakes said, “Black and I’ve been looking for other sources of interference for our comms. I went ahead and scanned frequencies we don’t normally use, much less monitor. I found something. Looks like a signal, but I’m not certain.”
“A signal?”
“Aye, sir,” Oakes said.
“What does Black say?”
“Black? Tell the captain,” Oakes said.
“Captain,” the AI said, “the waves appear more like radioactive decay than an actual signal as we understand it. However, I believe they’re more in line with cosmic rays.”
Dunn blinked. “Cosmic rays?”
“Yes, Captain,” the AI said.
The thoughts and concerns that had tangled up his mind for the past five minutes departed in an instant. “Black, what could cause something like that?”
“Unknown, Captain,” the AI said.
“Oakes? How long have you been monitoring this?”
“Half an hour,” Oakes said. “I thought it was maybe a false reading, so I’ve been running diagnostics over the sensor array. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at.”
A shiver danced down Dunn’s spine. “Have we been able to pinpoint the origin?”
“That’s the worrisome part of this, sir,” Oakes said. “As near as I can tell, it’s coming from Mira’s cargo bay.”
“Where is the signal headed? I mean, is it omnidirectional?”
“No, sir. It’s not,” Oakes said. “Our sensors only caught the transmission briefly when I was changing course to match Mira. From what I can tell, the signal’s intended destination is outside of the Sol System.”
The shiver hit him again, harder. “Black? Please tell me it’s not aimed at any KBOs.”
The AI paused. “I’m unable to tell you that, sir.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning,” Black said, “the approaching KBO is directly in the signal’s path.”
“Shit,” Dunn said.
Oakes cleared his throat. “Sir, what do you want me to--?”
S&R Black’s emergency klaxon went off. A number of alerts hit Dunn’s block. “Whoa. Black, what the hell is going on?”
“Captain, Lieutenant Nobel is under attack.”
The world seemed to freeze in place. “By what?”
“Exo-solar material,” Black said.
The red lights in the cargo bay flashed in sequence bathing him in an angry, strobing threat. Dunn leaped off the crate. “Dunn to Nobel. Come in.” No response. He attempted a block connection to the engineer. More nothing. Growling, he said “Oakes, you have the captain’s chair.”
“Sir,” Oakes said, “I’ll suit up and help Nobel.”
“Negative,” Dunn said as he ran to his locker. He had to suit up. He had to grab weapons. And he had to get out there. “I need you doing what you do. If you lose comms with me,” he said as he exited the cargo bay and entered the locker room, “I want you to get our marines on board. Tell Taulbee he’s in charge and to get Mira to Pluto.”
“Sir?”
“Just do it!” Dunn yelled. He opened his locker and dragged out his combat suit. As he shrugged into it, he finally heard Oakes say, “Aye, sir,” under his breath.
He needed Oakes in the command chair. He needed Oakes to fly. In other words, he needed Oakes to do his damned job. Right now, Dunn was the most expendable marine on the ship. Captains were never allowed to leave the ship and put themselves in danger, at least that was what the manual and officer training said. “Fuck the rules,” he said as the suit closed around him. He donned the helmet, checked the pressure, and ran as fast as he could to the same airlock Nobel had used.
As he ran, his eyes caught sight of the crates. He pulled a flechette rifle from the wall and walked to the crate containing the “Tritium Flechettes” rounds, took a magazine from the stash, and loaded the rifle. He stuffed three more magazines of normal flechette rounds into his ammo pouch and checked his utility belt. He had a vibro-blade, plenty of gas, atmosphere, emergency tether, and enough rounds to take on a squad.
Dunn entered the airlock, his heart beating fast. “Oakes. I’m leaving the ship.”
“Aye, sir,” Oakes said, his voice slightly choked. “Good hunting.”
He attached a tether line to his suit and cycled the airlock. The darkness of space greeted him like a lost lover.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The skiff picked up speed, fleeing the final mount-point area. Hovering ten meters above Mira’s hull, Taulbee had a second to blink before pinecones began smashing into the canopy like cannon shots.
Cursing, Taulbee hit the thrusters and brought the ‘52 another five meters away from the hull. “Gunny!” he yelled. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Get out of there, sir!” Gunny yelled back.
Taulbee touched the thrusters again, this time adding reverse momentum to the altitude. The craft drifted further from the hull and he found himself twenty meters away and facing the trench. He hit the combat shutters and the SV-52’s canopy disappeared beneath heavy Atmo-steel sheets. One of the port side cameras went dead leaving a blank spot on his HUD. And then he saw it.
The trench. It wasn’t a trench anymore. The glistening liquid disappeared as the great divot in the hull turned into a fissure before bursting open like a rotted fruit. Fine droplets of silver shot into space like mist, punctuated by the dark flakes of ruined and smashed Atmo-steel. Blanketed by the SV-52’s powerful lights, the trench seemed to explode as a tapered form reached outward and slammed against the hull.
Taulbee watched the thing in horror as the arm-like appendage clung to the hull and pulled the rest of the creature from the trench. Several other appendages appeared, looking like two-meter-long arms covered with waving bristles. Five. Seven. Nine. The creature finally floated free of the trench, its first arm still attached to the hull and keeping it moored.
Its surface held no color and hardly reflected any of the light. Space seemed to shimmer and shiver around it like a heat haze. The creature’s writhing and amorphous center flexed the impossibly dark arms before letting go of the hull. A field of pinecones directly below the creature’s clumsy egress took flight like a flock of birds and headed directly at Taulbee.
Before his confused and terrified brain had a chance to realize what was about to happen and that he should just get the hell out of there, the fleeing pinecones smashed into the ‘52’s hull. Another camera view winked out, leaving him partially blind on both the starboard and port sides. It didn’t matter, though. The real threat was now jetting toward him.
The alien, starfish-like creature pushed itself off the hull and flew at him. Yelling, Taulbee had just enough time to brace himself before the large creature collided with the SV-52, the momentum pushing the vehicle into a tumble through space. Arms with wriggling tubes scratched across the metal. One of the arms smacked a pinecone against the canopy. The creature, attached to the vehicle by one arm, used the rest of its appendages to grab the pinecone. The thing dragged the captured prey toward its center where a silvery set of mandibles waited.
The arms lined up on either side of the pinecone’s center before the creature folded it into its maw. A jet of glistening liquid shot across the pinecone’s surface, the smaller creature struggling in its grip. A haze or mist of gas puffed into space around the battle before the pinecone split in half. One of the arms freed itself from its quarry and plucked a purplish prize from the shell. The starfish thing’s center pulsed forward and devoured the alien meat in a single lunge.
Before he could take a breath, the aggressor flung the empty pinecone aside and wrapped its arms around another floating nearby while keeping itself attached to the craft. Taulbee struggled to rega
in his wits as the SV-52 tumbled through space in the direction of the debris field. The thing had knocked him away from Mira and if he didn’t regain control, he might smash into something large enough to crack the hull.
Using the vehicle’s non-sentient AI, he computed a maneuver solution and fired the thrusters in sequence. The SV-52 twirled in a cartwheel before regaining stability. Then the creature, either in rage, confusion, or fear, locked all of its arms down on the small craft’s hull as if to hold on.
Someone was yelling at him over the comms, but he barely noticed. The creature’s mouth had yawned open, the silver mandibles gleaming beneath the camera lights. The creature swung an arm and the camera died instantly.
“Fucking blind!” he yelled to no one and pushed the rear thrusters to full. The SV-52 shot toward Mira, the strange creature still attached and writhing against the force. 10 m/s. 12 m/s. 15. He was going to crash into Mira. He was going to crash and he was going to die, and--
The creature pushed off the vehicle and into space. The remaining camera covering the front 1/3 of the ‘52 filled his HUD with the image of Mira’s incredibly vast hull. His mind still shrieking with horror, Taulbee brought the undercarriage thrusters to a full burn. Mira’s hull slowly moved out of view, affording him the sight of empty space studded with the jewelry of distant stars.
“Taulbee! What’s your status?” Oakes’ words rang in his ears.
“Oakes,” he tried to say, but made little more than a hoarse, guttural rumble. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m clear of--”
The SV-52’s hull boomed with a massive impact before the craft spun out of control once again. His HUD lit with yellow and red warnings. He’d lost the port side thruster array and was jetting gas into space. The AI killed the fuel-line for the damaged area to ensure no more of the precious fuel escaped.
An arm appeared over the rear camera. And then another. “I’m so fucked,” Taulbee said aloud. The craft’s hull creaked. Another alarm went off in his HUD. The attacker was crumpling the aft hull. “Motherfucker!” Taulbee screamed and brought the aft cannons to life.
He fired three times, blind and unsure how much, if any, of the creature was in front of the barrels. The first flechette exploded less than a meter away from the ship, rattling the hull with debris. The second round hit nothing. The third, however, was the one.
The arms disappeared in a violent wrench and then he was free. Compensating for the lost port thrusters, he blasted upward again and rotated using the remaining attitude jets. Mostly blind on the bow, he turned enough to keep the starboard cameras focused on where the creature had been while the SV-52 continued flying away from Mira and to S&R Black.
A storm cloud of pinecones, thicker than he’d imagined possible, floated twenty meters away from Mira’s starboard side. The starfish thing undulated, the sheen of haze surrounding it more palpable than before. Trailing drops of silver liquid, the creature glided into the grouping of pinecones, its arms slashing into their midst and eating prize after prize.
“Taulbee!” Oakes yelled again. “What’s your status?”
He barely heard the voice over the trip-hammer beat of his heart and the bellows of his breathing. “Oakes,” he said between rapid breaths, “I’m damaged, but still here. Those goddamned pinecones are alive. And whatever the fuck came out of the ship is eating them.” He swallowed hard. “Damned near tore me apart.”
“Get back to the ship. Dunn and Nobel are under attack. They need cover.”
“Shit,” Taulbee said. “Copy. On my way at best possible speed.”
Port thrusters? Dead. He had cameras covering the starboard side, a portion of the undercarriage, full visibility above the canopy, and less than 1/3 visibility from the bow. The SV-52 warnings on his HUD pulsed with component failures.
“Fuck it,” he said and retracted the blast shutters over the canopy. Through the transparent aluminum, he saw the well-lit form of S&R Black. Its aft nested in nearly complete darkness, he made out pin-points of light surrounded by thickening shadows. “Hold on, Captain. I’m coming.”
As soon as the words tumbled from his mouth, he wondered if he had enough juice to even make a difference.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rather than turning around to face the threat, Nobel reversed his mag-boots and launched off the side of the ship. Pinecones bumped off his suit as he reached the end of the slack and pulled hard. He swung over the ship’s side and onto its spine near the tail. He locked his mag-boots to the hull, heart pounding and nearly hyperventilating. The thick cloud of pinecones had scattered in various directions from his escape, but were already regathering. He didn’t give a shit about that so long as the things stayed away from him.
“Black!” he yelled. “Get me some help! Now!”
“Captain Dunn is on his way,” the AI said.
Nobel barely heard the response. The pinecones were rising away from the heat fins and coming closer to him. Nobel pulled on the tether, but he was out of slack. If they came any closer, he either had to mag-walk further toward the bow and take his chances they would catch him, or disconnect the tether and jet away. Neither was a good option. Mag-walking wasn’t something he was good at, but jetting without a tether? He was aces at mag-walking compared to that.
Dunn was on his way. At least that was something. With any luck, the captain brought weapons when he left the airlock, or they were both screwed. A yellow hazard alert popped up on his HUD. “Incoming Projectile.” He had time to blink at the alert and open his mouth before something streaked through the darkness toward the cloud of pinecones.
The creatures seemed to sense the approaching shadow. The objects scattered in all directions, many of them heading his way. Nobel reflexively put his hands in front of his helmet to shield him, but it didn’t make a difference. Breath rushed out of his lungs as the creatures smashed into his chest and waist. The armor prevented the pinecones from puncturing the suit, but that didn’t keep him from feeling every impact.
His chest screamed with pain as a rib broke in half. He leaned sideways, feet still stuck to the hull, from the force. Pinecones bounced off his suit in all directions and then something slammed into the hull next to him. Doubled over in pain, his HUD flashed red alert messages. “Radioactive Hazard.”
Nobel managed to gather his wits and checked his helmet cam. Then he began to scream. The object that struck the hull looked like something out of his worst nightmares. It had more arms than his terrified mind could count, each of them covered in waving bristles. The creature reached out its arms and plucked several pinecones out of the air. Glistening, silvery liquid shot from its mandible-filled mouth on the first pinecone in its grasp.
He tried to step sideways, yelling with the pain. The starfish-like creature swung one of its free arms and slapped his leg just below the knee. The force snapped the bone with a crunch that echoed inside his suit. Nobel emptied the rest of the air in his lungs with a short-lived scream. More alerts flashed on his HUD. Nobel had just enough consciousness to realize the radiation alert was critical.
Seeing double, he pulled the vibro-blade from his belt. Tears stained his cheeks and his mind burned with the pain. Operating on instinct, he cut the tether and reversed the magnetics on his boots.
He felt the grind of bone on bone as he shot away from the hull and into space. Vision fading into darkness, he saw his leg flopping unnaturally in the z-g. Before he blacked out, he had just enough time to activate his beacon.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Gunny watched the thing crawl out of the trench. Before he lost sight of it, he saw its silhouette in the lights of Taulbee’s SV-52. His mouth dropped open as the creature began its attack.
“Wendt,” he yelled, “get us the fuck out of here!”
“On it, Gunny,” Wendt said. Gunny might have been wrong, but the words sounded as though they came through clenched teeth.
He activated the general comms. “Taulbee is in trouble! I repeat, Taulbee is under at
tack!”
“Gunny,” Oakes said. “Head for the tail section. Get there now!”
“Shit,” Gunny said. “Wendt?”
“I heard him,” the marine said. He hit the thrusters hard and Gunny watched the SV-52’s lights turn into pinpricks.
“Copenhaver,” Gunny said over the squad channel. “Get ready for a hot pick up.”
“Aye, Gunny,” she said.
Gunny readjusted his position and mag-locked his boots to the skiff’s deck. After he popped the locker open, he pulled out a flechette rifle. “Lyke. Take this now and don’t you dare lose it.”
Lyke’s voice stuttered through the comms, but he reached out his hands and took the rifle. Gunny mag-locked one to his side and turned to face the skiff’s bow.
Even at this speed, the mag-boots kept their connection to the ferrous deck. Gunny mag-walked to the gunner’s dais and stepped into the weapon array. “Lyke. Don’t you fire until I tell you to.”
“What am I going to be firing at?” the young marine asked.
“Whatever the fuck I tell you to!” Gunny yelled. “Wendt. Distance?”
“We’ll be at the spindle in ten seconds.”
Gunny licked his lips as he tried to calculate the meters separating the skiff from S&R Black. Oakes hadn’t moved the ship closer to Mira. “Oakes! Can you get the ship closer to us?”
“No, Gunny,” the lieutenant said. He sounded pissed as hell. “I can’t risk using the thrusters. I might fry the captain and Nobel.”
Gunny blinked. “The captain is outside?”
“Aye,” Oakes said. “Just get here!”
Cursing, Gunny connected his block and activated the targeting array on the mounted gun. He swiveled until he found S&R Black in the distance. The illumination on the ship was just enough to show him a nest of shadows near the heat fins. The amorphous blobs seemed to be scattering in all directions, but still clumping together in groups. “Too far,” he said aloud. “Too goddamned far.”
Derelict: Tomb (Derelict Saga Book 2) Page 25
