“Lieutenant?”
After a moment, Taulbee’s voice was cold and steady. “Aye, sir?”
“We’re going to go beneath S&R Black. Can you get that thing to follow you?”
“Not sure, sir. But I can try.”
“Do it.”
“Aye, sir.”
Dunn checked his HUD. In the distance, he saw the creature illuminated by the SV-52’s floodlights. The thing kept floating through space from side to side, alternately pulling its arms back in and then pulsing them back out to fling flechettes. From what he could see, the creature was getting better at throwing the shards.
“Gunny,” Dunn said, “we need to get beneath the tail section.”
“Aye, sir. Wendt? You heard the captain.”
“Aye,” Wendt said.
Dunn pulled the flechette mag from his rifle and held it up. “Gunny? Who’s your best shot?”
“Copenhaver is, sir,” Gunny said.
“PFC!” Dunn said. “Get over here.”
Copenhaver quickly mag-walked from the skiff’s aft to stand beside Dunn. “Sir!” she said.
He offered her the magazine. “Clear your rifle and put this in.”
“Sir?”
“Do it, PFC,” Gunny said.
Copenhaver followed orders. Gunny’s helmet pointed directly at Dunn. He could feel the sergeant’s unasked question. “New ammo, Gunny. A gift from the Trio.”
“Aye, sir,” Gunny said, confusion in his voice.
“I’ll explain later. I promise.”
“Very good, sir,” Gunny said.
“Ready, sir,” Copenhaver said.
“Good.” The skiff had moved much closer to S&R Black. Seventy-five meters of space separated them from the tail. A few pinecones floated near the aft keeping their distance from the starfish thing, but refusing to leave. It was as if they were waiting for something. “Wendt? Get us lower. I want to skate about three meters below Black’s belly.”
“Aye, sir,” Wendt said.
“Here’s the plan, Gunny,” Dunn said. “Taulbee’s going to lure that thing away from the ship. Not far, but far enough for Copenhaver to get a good shot.”
Gunny nodded. “That new ammo do more damage?”
“Well,” Dunn said, “I managed to remove one of its arms with a round.”
“Outstanding,” Gunny growled. “PFC? Your job is to aim and shoot. I want as many rounds in the center of that thing as possible.”
“Aye, Gunny,” Copenhaver said. She had already moved to the gunwale and squatted to her knees, the rifle resting on the gunwale.
“If you miss,” Dunn said, “just take your time and try again. You have nine shots.”
“Understood, sir,” Copenhaver said.
Dunn put the feed from the skiff’s forward camera on his HUD. Wendt had already touched the attitude thrusters to change attitude. The skiff drifted slowly at a negative vector relative to the ship as it moved forward. “How much fuel, Wendt?”
“Good for now, sir. Just don’t ask me to take much evasive action.”
Evasive action. Shit. That’s what they were going to need.
*****
“Move, asshole!” Taulbee shouted. The creature was sliding again toward the tail. “Not that way!” He fired another volley, this time walking the rounds from the tail toward the creature. The flechettes exploded one by one, each pushing the thing in the direction he wanted. He’d already closed the distance to twenty meters. Any closer and he’d be right on top of the creature.
The arms reached out and gathered more debris. Taulbee growled and moved the SV-52 sideways as soon as the appendages flung the projectiles back at him. The metal shards glittered in the floodlights before flying past the canopy and into space. Taulbee moved closer to the tail, rotated the ‘52, and fired again. The flechettes pounded Black’s hull, but he knew they wouldn’t penetrate. Or at least he hoped they wouldn’t.
Another set of rounds exploded above the creature and to its left. The starfish thing pivoted and floated both lower and to the right. “That’s it,” he said, “stay right there.”
The creature drew its arms in, but hadn’t reached for any of the flechettes. It seemed to be staring at him, waiting for him to make a move. When it pulsed, it caught him by surprise. Instead of another volley of shards, silvery liquid shot from its center toward him. Taulbee let out a yell and hit the thrusters, but he was too late.
The stream of glistening liquid hit the canopy and another camera died, leaving him two-thirds blind on the support vehicle’s bow. An alert popped up on the HUD. The canopy’s integrity was at 35% and dropping. Atmo-steel might be able to survive that shit for a while, but the trans-aluminum obviously couldn’t.
The starfish squirted another stream. The liquid hit the canopy and alerts turned from yellow to red. The canopy was almost done. “Taulbee to Dunn. I’m about to lose atmosphere.”
“Hit it again! We need it lower!” the captain said.
Taulbee aimed the cannons and fired once more, making sure the rounds exploded just above the thing. About to spew another geyser of silver liquid, the creature didn’t have a chance to move out of the way. The flechettes raked across its flesh just as a stream of liquid flew past the SV-52. The creature moved further below the fuselage. Taulbee changed attitude to keep parallel with the creature.
Below Black’s belly, and behind the creature, the skiff came into view. Filled with suit lights from too many marines aboard, the skiff seemed to glow. From his remaining camera, he watched in silence as the creature drew its arms in again. He readied himself to hit the thrusters and push the SV-52 out of the way of another volley when everything changed.
Three winks of light erupted from the side of the skiff and then two of the creature’s arms disappeared in an eruption of dark fragments. The creature tried to turn itself to face the new threat just as another round tore through its center. The starfish thing’s middle shattered into fragments that headed out into space.
Three limbs, no longer attached to a center, tumbled past him toward Mira. A rain of debris pinged off the hull, but did no further damage. Taulbee exhaled sharply. “Taulbee to Dunn. Threat eliminated, sir. Good shooting!”
“You can thank PFC Copenhaver when we get back aboard,” Dunn said. “Speaking of. Mind giving us a tow?”
Taulbee was spent. The constant surge of adrenaline through his system since he encountered his first starfish had left him shaking and exhausted. “No problem, sir.”
“Black,” Dunn said over the general comms, “we’ll need repairs and refuels as soon as we can. We have one casualty.”
“Understood, Captain,” Black said.
Taulbee gently lowered the SV-52 until he saw all of the skiff. He checked the ‘52’s status and groaned. The coffin he’d recovered was still cradled beneath the hull. “Stick around,” he told it and hit the release button. The SV-52 vibrated slightly as the magnetics beneath her changed polarity and pushed the coffin away from the vehicle.
“Taulbee? What is that?” Dunn asked.
“A stasis coffin, sir. Can’t hold it and you at the same time.”
“Understood, Taulbee.”
He carefully aimed the line-gun and shot it at the skiff’s gunwale. The magnetic harpoon hit the skiff and his HUD turned green.
“Pop your canopy, Taulbee,” Dunn said. “It’s covered in that silver shit. Don’t want that on Black.”
“Aye, sir,” Taulbee said. He sent a block command and the remains of the 270° trans-aluminum window flew away from the SV-52. He watched it sail over S&R Black’s fuselage and into space. His pilot suit provided atmosphere and heat enough to keep him alive, especially for the few minutes it would take to tow the skiff. Need a better canopy, he said to himself. “Captain? Am I clean?”
“Clean enough,” Dunn said.
Taulbee smiled. “Hold on, marines. I’m bringing you in.”
Chapter Forty-Four
He hadn’t been on all that many commercial
spacecraft, but the civil freighters and supply transports were always dirty, cluttered, and claustrophobic. Mira’s bridge, on the other hand, much more resembled a military spacecraft in its construction, efficiency, and redundancy. That said, Mira’s bridge was a disaster area.
After mag-walking two meters through the hatch, he stopped and pivoted in a slow 90° turn. The bridge was filled with the shadows of floating objects, debris, and corpses. The bodies were the most jarring at first, until he remembered the area might be filled with pinecones. Fighting the prickles crawling up his spine, Dickerson examined every shape. Five of the shadows worried him.
Once certain nothing was coming to attack him from the shadows, Dickerson scanned the wall nearest the hatch. He found what he was looking for and grinned. The emergency generator panel sat recessed on the wall adjacent to the hatch. He opened the panel, swiveled the handle out, and began rotating it. A red light winked with power. Dickerson continued cranking until the light finally turned green. “Here goes nothing,” he said and pressed the “POWER” button.
Several lights in the large room flickered fitfully. Between the light pulses, he saw the corpses, destruction, and the barest hint of objects he didn’t immediately understand. When the few lights finally stabilized leaving the room in a muted twilight, he gulped.
The 12x12-meter area held ten holo-console stations, ergo acceleration couches, and a wealth of pampering niceties such as its own nutritional dispensers. Mira’s bridge was quite possibly the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Or rather, had been.
Six bodies floated in the vacuum. In the dim light, he could just barely make out the colors of their jumpsuits. Their once sky-blue uniforms seemed out of place amidst the gray walls. Dickerson peered around the room before finding the dais with the captain’s chair. The captain was still in it.
Strapped into the combination acceleration couch and command chair, the man looked as though he might still be flying the ship. If not for the scream frozen on his face, that was. He didn’t appear to have suffered any direct injuries other than exposure to both vacuum and absolute zero temperatures.
A large divot scarred the wall behind the captain’s station. Dickerson furrowed his brow and walked to it. Whatever caused the damage was at least a meter across and maybe two meters high. It had to have either been traveling at a high rate of speed or massive enough to crack the Atmo-steel like plastic.
“Dickerson. Status?” Kali said.
Dickerson rolled his eyes. She asked him to clear the bridge, not sightsee. “Aye, Corporal. From what I can tell, we’re clear.”
“Copy. We’re bringing in Elliott.”
He didn’t bother responding. After turning from the dais, he looked at the front of the bridge. The blast shutters were down across the majority of the transparent aluminum canopy. Except for one.
The aluminum had been completely shattered. He checked the sightline between the canopy impact and the dent in the wall. They matched. Whatever had come through the canopy had hit it like a cannon shot and impacted with the bulkhead.
An arm floated by him and he caught his breath. There was no way to tell what had happened to the crew, but he thought it likely the damage to the canopy had also managed to turn the aluminum into a flechette bomb; the slivers and shards of the thick metal would have been just as effective. Unless the object had been extremely massive, it had to have been traveling quite fast just to puncture a canopy, let alone go right through it.
He walked to the starboard side. More of the same kinds of damage. “What the hell did it do? Bounce around once it got in here?”
“What are you talking about, Dickerson?” Kali said.
Startled, he turned around instead of checking his HUD. Kali stood in the hatchway and Carb had already mag-locked Elliott to the wall. “Sorry, Corporal,” he said. “Just thinking aloud.”
Kali walked to the shutters and the shattered viewport. She turned and looked at the dais. “Bounced around? You mean whatever hit the canopy?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean,” he said. He lifted a finger and pointed at the wall. “I don’t know what it was, but it was really moving when it came in here.”
“Okay,” she said. “That worries me.” She walked to the far port side, her helmet constantly swiveling back and forth. “That worries me a lot.”
“What does?” Carb asked through a yawn.
“I don’t see what could have done that,” Kali said. “Nothing in this room could have. Not and survived.”
“Shit,” Dickerson said. “Okay, yeah, that’s bad.”
“What are you two talking about?” Carb asked.
“The corporal is saying,” Dickerson said, “that whatever did that kind of damage should still be in here. And it’s not.”
“So, what,” Carb said, “you saying it crawled back out of here through the canopy?”
“No,” Dickerson said. “Although I’d actually prefer that.” He cleared his throat. “I’m betting this damage occurred and someone took it out of here.”
Kali walked to the dais and stood over the captain’s chair. She shook her head. “Well,” she said, “the bad news is we can’t salvage anything here and there’s nothing to help us communicate.”
“And what’s the good news?” Carb asked.
“That we just need to find the auxiliary bridge,” Kali said, hope in her voice. “If, that is, Dickerson’s right and that thing didn’t just get up and crawl back into space.”
Dickerson brought up Mira’s schematics and frowned. “Deck five, midships.”
“Please tell me that’s not near the cargo bay,” Carb said.
“If only. It’s right above it,” Dickerson said.
“Fuck me,” Carb muttered. She pointed at the missing canopy pane open to space. “Can’t we just mag-walk out there and see if we can hail someone?”
Kali and Dickerson turned to stare at the rectangle of darkness. “Shit, Carb,” Dickerson said. “Seems like every year or two, you have a decent idea.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Like turning down the grav plates to half gravity when I’m riding you?”
Dickerson was suddenly glad he had a helmet covering his blushing face. “Uh, um--” His stammer broke off into silence.
The comms filled with Kali’s laughter. “Never tried that before,” Kali said.
“It’s fun,” Carb said. “Especially with a man as big as--”
“I’ll do the honors,” Dickerson said, cutting her off in mid-sentence.
Kali’s laughter grew louder and then subsided. “All right, Lance Corporal. Get to it.”
Without another word, Dickerson walked forward to the missing pane. The 2x3-meter hole in the canopy had just enough room for him to climb through without risking a rip in his suit. He rose to his full height, locked a glove to the Atmo-steel reinforcement, and prepared to pull his legs through the hole.
“Hey!” Kali called.
“Aye, Corporal?”
She pulled a tether from her belt and walked to him. “Don’t want you getting lost out there.”
He rolled his eyes beneath the black visor and attached the end of the tether to the suit harness. “Thanks, Corporal.”
“You’re welcome. Now see if you can contact Black.”
Dickerson pulled himself out the canopy, mag-locked himself to the bow, and stared into space. Far in the distance, appearing as little more than a large point of light, lay Pluto. An even tinier dot floated almost on top of it. That was the Pluto Exo-Observatory. He suddenly wished it was much larger and much much closer.
Something bumped his foot. He looked down and saw a pinecone. The strange creature lazily turned itself so the bulbous end faced his boot. Its sharp claw slid out. He disengaged his mag-boot and kicked the thing. It flew through space for five meters before he lost sight of it in the darkness.
“Have to be careful out here,” he told himself. He scanned the area and saw more of the creatures clamped on the hull. He activated his comms. �
�S&R Black, this is Dickerson. Over.”
No response.
“S&R Black, come in.”
No response.
He ground his teeth together and turned on his block communication.
Black. This is Dickerson.
No response.
“Goddammit,” he said aloud. “Someone please come the fuck in.”
Something bumped his back. He froze and watched his suit’s rear camera feed. Three pinecones floated behind him, each with their claws extended. The closest one moved forward and bumped him again.
Black. This is Dickerson. Come in, Black.
Lance Corporal, the AI’s voice said in his mind, what is your status?
“Thank the void,” he muttered. Our status is we need an extraction. We are currently on the main bridge.
A pinecone detached itself from the hull and began floating toward his right hand.
Do you have any additional casualties?
Other than Elliott, no.
The AI paused before responding. He hated the sensation of Black crawling through his thoughts, but the sudden emptiness was even worse.
Lance Corporal, Black said, your position is untenable. The remaining skiff and the SV-52 are damaged. The ship has been attacked. We are unable to provide assistance at this time.
Get me the captain, Black.
I am unable to do so at this time, the computer replied. However, I recommend you retreat from the bow. My sensors show many objects moving in that direction.
“No shit,” he said aloud. Where the hell do we go?
The AI said nothing, but a map appeared on his HUD. The 3-D overlay showed a path leading to a horizontal slip-point joining the foredecks to the mid-decks as well as to the aft. According to the schematics, multiple escape pods should be located between the midships and aft junction. If they are still intact and operational, the AI said, the squad should be able to use them to escape Mira. We can then pick you up without using either the skiff or the SV-52.
The area was getting crowded. At least a dozen pinecones had ripped free from the hull and began floating around him like satellites. He couldn’t stay out here much longer. Not if he didn’t want to get overwhelmed by them.
Derelict: Tomb (Derelict Saga Book 2) Page 27
