Derelict: Tomb (Derelict Saga Book 2)

by Paul E. Cooley

  The other marines were silent. She knew they were all looking at the gory display floating just a few meters away.

  “Where are the bodies?” Carb asked.

  “Not sure I want to know,” Dickerson said. He turned to face Kalimura. “Same formation, Corporal?”

  “Same formation,” Kali said with a nod. “Elliott? How you doing?”

  “Oh, just hanging around,” the wounded marine said. “Feeling a bit better, though.”

  “Good,” Kali said. “Carb? You need a break?”

  “Nah,” she said. “Elliott’s lack of brains makes him pretty light.”

  “Asshole,” Elliott chuckled.

  Kali smiled in spite of herself. “Let’s move, people.”

  She turned and began walking down the corridor. Despite the lack of gravity, her knees ached as did her back. No matter how much THC and analgesics her nannies had stored, she didn’t think they had enough reserves to dull much more pain. Pretty soon, every nerve ending and muscle would be screaming in agony. At least Elliott had a fresh supply of nannies and chemical assistance. She, Dickerson, and Carb, on the other hand, were going to run through their reserves very soon.

  After walking five meters, she reached the T-junction and told the squad to wait while she checked the two intersecting corridors. Both were clear except for something on the wall. Curious, she stepped into the left side of the T and shined her lights. Barely legible words written in sloppy, ropey red stared back at her. “THE TIDE IS COMING IN!” She blinked at it before marking the timestamp on her feed recorder. She didn’t have to guess what the writer had used to make the marks. The only question she had was where he got the blood from, as there weren’t any corpses she could see.

  “Corporal?” Dickerson asked. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just more crazy shit on the walls.”

  “What’d it say this time?”

  She told him and he went silent. Kali did one last check of both sides of the T, and then continued down the main corridor. The slip-point was ten meters ahead of them. Ten meters, four decks, a few meters more, and they would be at the auxiliary bridge. Then maybe they could get some answers.

  Like the first slip-point they’d entered, this one was filled with debris. A mag-mug, shards of shattered Atmo-steel, the occasional hydration pouch, and items she didn’t even want to know about, floated through the shaft. Their descent was painless, although her nerves jangled with every centimeter they covered.

  One deck. Two decks. Three. Just before the fourth, she halted her descent and clung to the wall, peeking through the egress just enough to shine her suit lights on the corridor. The area in front of the slip-point was empty.

  “Dickerson?”

  “I’m coming,” he said. A beat later, he spoke again. “Okay, Corporal. I’ve got an angle. Go ahead.”

  She inhaled deeply and pulled herself through the egress and into the corridor. Kali faced one direction and kept an eye on her rear cam. Either side seemed to be empty of strange shadows, but that didn’t mean it was clear.

  Frozen red blobs floated through the air in thick clusters. A long runner the same color stretched from ceiling to floor in a frozen spatter encrusted on the corridor wall. She half-expected to see more writing on the walls, but there wasn’t any. No corpses either. No dismembered body parts, no shreds of clothing, nothing.

  “Dickerson? Watch my left.”

  “Got it, Corporal,” he said and swung himself out of the slip-point shaft. He quickly mag-walked a few meters from her and took up position facing the other direction.

  “Okay, Carb. You’re clear.”

  Through her rear cam, she saw Carb carefully exit the slip-point, making sure not to bump Elliott on the way out.

  Kali’s ribs throbbed. Deep breaths hurt, but it was better than hyperventilating. She checked her oxygen supply, ignoring the damaged suit sensor and instead checking the tank level. She was already on reserves. Not good. The rest of the squad had to be getting close to their reserves too. She hoped against hope that the bridge had a refill station. Failing that, they’d have to walk the corridor to find one.

  “Squad. Ready to move out?” Carb and Dickerson answered affirmative. Kali started walking. Just a few meters, she kept telling herself. She counted them off one by one and then stopped. A door was open on the left side of the hallway. It wasn’t the entrance to the auxiliary bridge. Frowning, she turned her helmet in that direction and illuminated the space.

  The room was obviously used for storage. Crates of printer material, cables, and even emergency rations stuffed the area. As did the marks and streaks of frozen blood trails. She shuddered from the gore. “That room’s clear,” she said without explanation. The others didn’t respond as she continued walking ahead. The corridor ended in a wide door. The words “AUX BRIDGE” glowed in photosensitive paint.

  Kali knew she wouldn’t find one, but she looked for manual controls anyway. Nothing. They’d have to cut in. Again.

  “Dickerson? I have to cut through.”

  “Take your time, Corporal. I’ve got our six.”

  “Copy,” she said and pulled the cutter from her belt. She hoped it had enough fuel to finish the job.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  When he finally managed to make it down to the cargo bay, Nobel took one look at the SV-52 and started cursing. The cast on his leg made walking possible, but painful. Fortunately, the autodoc had dosed him with enough local anesthetics to keep him from passing out. In a few hours, the nannies would start knitting things together as well as repairing broken blood vessels and capillaries. Until then, however, he just had to fight through it.

  Dunn had contacted him over the block and told him they needed to start repairs. Nobel had expected that call. While the other marines could probably repair the two craft without his expertise, he was damned if he was going to let them touch his responsibilities. Trusting untrained grunts with printers, tools, and schematics was like arming chimps with nukes. Even with Black guiding them, they’d still fuck it up. And there had been enough disasters on this mission already.

  Gunny’s squad, looking as though they needed showers and a shitload of rack time, stood next to the skiff, hands on their hips while Gunny walked around the damaged craft. He looked up and saw Nobel. His normally expressionless face twitched into a smile. Nobel couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Good to see you, sir,” Gunny said.

  Nobel nodded. “You as well, Gunny. Where’s the marine that shot that fucking thing?”

  “Right here,” Gunny said and pointed to Copenhaver.

  Nobel limped forward, wincing with every step, until he stood before her. “Good shooting, marine. Had I been more conscious at the time, I would have thanked you then.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said. He could tell she was trying to hide her smile, but it wasn’t working. The whole damned crew seemed giddy. Considering what they’d been through, he wasn’t all that surprised.

  He nodded at the skiff. “She’s actually in pretty good condition, Gunny. Considering.”

  “Aye, sir,” Gunny said.

  “Captain Dunn tells me he wants more armor, though.”

  “Aye, sir,” Gunny said. “Apparently, he’s worried we might get attacked.”

  “Gee,” Nobel said. “I wonder why.” He clapped his hands together. “Okay, marines. We’re going to ignore the skiff for the moment and get the SV-52 fixed. I need three crates of Atmo-ink, one crate of micro, and two crates of plas-steel.”

  “You heard the man!” Gunny shouted.

  His squad left the skiff and headed to the crate line. “Gunny? Thanks for saving our asses.”

  “My pleasure, sir.” The older marine pointed at Nobel’s leg. “Guessing that’s hurting you pretty bad.”

  “Bad enough,” Nobel said. “But not as bad as getting my suit perforated.”

  “We got lucky,” Gunny said. “What happened out there?”

  Nobel sighed. “H
ad to repair the fin. The pinecones out there started getting frisky, so I took a trip to the tail. That’s when that, that, that thing came out of nowhere. No idea why it decided to make a meal out of me.”

  “Wrong place, wrong time,” Taulbee said.

  Nobel turned and gritted his teeth at the pain in his leg. He saluted. Taulbee returned it and offered his hand. Nobel shook it with a smile. “Good to see you.”

  “Same here. You going to help fix my bird?”

  “That piece of shit?” Nobel asked. “Yeah, I’ll help. But I expect a beer when we get back to Neptune.”

  “Of course,” Taulbee chuckled. “Now. We’re on the clock, Nobel. Did--?”

  “Captain Dunn gave me a block update,” Nobel said. “I’ve got all the particulars. Now I just need to walk everyone through what they need to do. I’d trust Black to give you instructions, but I’m not sure you apes could handle it.” He paused and then bit his lip. “No offense, sir. No offense, Gunny.”

  “You kidding?” Taulbee said with a laugh. “Damned glad you’re here.”

  Gunny’s squad piled the crates near the printer. Nobel connected his block to the device, ticked off the items he needed, and then waited for the marines to load the crates into the printer. Within a few minutes, the 3-D printer began manufacturing new cameras, new thrusters, and other components to fix the SV-52.

  Most modern vessels were equipped with a printer capable of using on-board materials to manufacture parts in emergencies. Sensor arrays, minor engine components, and even weapons could be fabricated while the ship was on a mission or traveling between the planets. Major damage, like ripped deck plates, failed drives, or nuclear reactors, still had to be repaired in dry-dock.

  Marine support craft were expected to get damaged every mission. It was just a simple reality. Canopies shattered. Weapons impacts damaged hulls. And occasionally, a part simply failed. All those were the normal wear and tear of ripping and zipping through debris-cluttered space and suffering flechettes-round impacts.

  As each piece rolled out of the fabricator, Nobel connected his block and checked it for defects. One of the camera lenses wasn’t quite up to the quality he expected, but it would work in a pinch. If SFMC had upgraded their printer, he wouldn’t even have to bother to check.

  When the assembly line finished, the squad put the new parts on a grav-sled and transported them to the SV-52. Nobel supervised the marines, including Taulbee, as they cut, pulled, and dropped each damaged piece from the vehicle. Within fifteen minutes, Taulbee’s craft had new cameras, a new canopy, and new thrusters.

  Both Nobel and Black double-checked and tested each new component. When that was finished, he and Black spent a moment deciding where to place new armor and how best to attach it. The fabricator rolled out meter squares of centimeter thick Atmo-steel. The squad welded the plates around the canopy and also buttressed the shield surrounding the thruster lines. If the creatures attacked Taulbee again, they’d have a much more difficult time breaking through the lines and damaging the thrusters. At least Nobel hoped that would be the case.

  Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes from the time they started to the time they finished repairing the SV-52. Next? The skiff.

  That was simpler. The skiffs had been designed to suffer brutal damage before becoming inoperable. Therefore, the components were hardened against EMP, impacts, and explosive rounds. It took a lot of damage to render a skiff inoperable. Repairing it and putting on a layer of extra armor took less than ten minutes.

  Once both vehicles had been inspected a second time, Nobel called it good. Black agreed with his assessment that they were ready for action.

  At Taulbee’s direction, the squad cycled the crate loaders again revealing ten blue colored crates. Nobel blinked. “Sir? What the hell are those?”

  “Those,” Taulbee said with a grin, “are our new weapons.”

  The squad emptied the first crate of magazines, slotted them into their weapons, and filled the skiff’s locker with more. They handed Taulbee two mags for his personal weapon and left a few more for reserve. After that, they started offloading warheads.

  Nobel connected his block to each crate and read the description of their contents. His mind buzzed with a million different questions. At last, he made eye contact with Taulbee. “Sir? Where the hell did we get these?”

  “Courtesy of the Trio,” Taulbee said. He and Copenhaver guided a grav-sled of warheads and cannon munitions to the SV-52.

  “But why? I mean, why the hell does this shit even exist?”

  Taulbee shook his head. “I don’t know, Robert. I don’t even know if half this shit is going to work. I only know that PFC Copenhaver here managed to practically destroy that creature with one shot of this new ammo.” He shrugged. “That’s enough for me.”

  Nobel paused while Taulbee and Copenhaver filled his cannon and launchers with the new munitions. “Sir, you ever get the feeling we’re not getting the whole story?”

  “Yup,” Taulbee said. “And believe me, when this is all over, I’m having a long talk with those AIs about the shit they’ve put us through.”

  “Copy that,” Nobel said. He turned and watched as the rest of the squad, including Gunny, finished outfitting the skiff. He didn’t know what game they’d be hunting out there, but they were certainly prepared for it. He hoped.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The cut panel fell into the room. Dickerson watched through the rear cam feed as Kalimura turned off the cutting beam and placed it back in her belt. Her suit lights stabbed through the gloom. She turned her head slowly from side to side, her rifle raised and ready to fire at anything that moved. Dickerson couldn’t help but grin. If they lived through this, he’d be happy to be in her squad full time. The lady knew what she was doing.

  “I think we’re clear,” she said over the comms. “Just be prepared for some more corpsicles.”

  “Great,” Carb said. “Ever wonder what would happen if you smashed them with a hammer?” she said with a giggle.

  “Carb?” Dickerson groaned. “You are one sick woman.”

  Kalimura stepped through the opening and into the auxiliary bridge. Carbonaro took her time, ensuring she didn’t shred Elliott’s flimsy suit on the metal edges. Once inside, Dickerson walked backward until he was a few centimeters from the hatch. He took one last look around to clear the area, and entered the auxiliary bridge.

  Dickerson rose from his crouch and stopped cold. Kalimura hadn’t been kidding about the corpses. Unlike most of the others they’d seen, these were intact as though the bridge crew had died from exposure rather than by human hands. He blinked. Except, that was, for the small round holes in their foreheads. Someone had executed them.

  “Dickerson?” Kalimura said. “Can you put the hatch back together at least well enough to give us some containment?”

  “Probably, Corporal,” he said. He turned, lifted the metal cutout, and placed it back into the doorway. After pulling a welder from his belt, he began applying spot patches. The operation took less than two minutes. It was a shit job, but it was enough to keep the area closed off. If the pinecones tried to get through, he doubted they could. But the multi-armed thing? He was pretty sure its appendages could wreck through the repair without a problem. However, the creatures they’d seen thus far were too large to fit through the gap. He hoped like hell they didn’t come in smaller varieties.

  When he turned back to face the room, he noticed the corporal standing near the starboard bulkhead. She examined the wall, lifting and dropping her head for a few seconds, and then moving another step and repeating the exercise.

  “Corporal? What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Looking for O2,” she said. “Can’t tell me you’re not getting low.”

  She was right. In another fifteen minutes, he’d be on emergency reserves. Elliott probably had the most oxygen of all of them but only because he hadn’t been exerting himself. Lucky him. Dickerson thought of his decapitated hand and suddenly felt li
ke an asshole.

  Kalimura halted. “Oh, yeah,” she whispered. He watched as she touched a panel and an O2 station swung out from the wall. “Carb. You and Elliott top off,” she said. “Dickerson. Go to the navigation console.”

  “Aye, Corporal,” he said. He mag-walked between two of the floating corpses, his eyes focused straight ahead rather than looking closely at the bodies. He’d already seen too many glassy eyes and frozen, terrified faces locked in eternal screams.

  The navigation console was easy to pick out. Although the tech was more than fifty years old, it hadn’t changed much in that time. For the most part. The curved console allowed navigators a nearly 270° view of the space around their ship, planetary maps, or charts. In conjunction with an AI, navigators could pilot nearly any sized ship through crowded asteroid belts and shipping lanes. The occasional impact with stray debris and solar material was unavoidable, but the systems were more than adequate to keep ships from sustaining catastrophic damage.

  The console was clean except for runners of frost. The chair at the station had no blood or other substances. He looked around the room checking for hints of silver, but found nothing. The room had been completely sealed when the ship lost life-support.

  “Strange,” Kalimura said.

  “What’s that, Corporal?” Dickerson asked.

  He checked his HUD and found her in his rear cam feed. She had uncovered a storage area inside one of the walls. “EVA suits. Five of them.” She turned and scanned the room. “They didn’t bother putting them on.”

  Carb grunted. “Maybe they knew it was hopeless. No point in prolonging the inevitable.”

  “Maybe,” Kalimura said.

  “Or,” Dickerson said, “they were shot before they had a chance.”

  Kalimura didn’t reply.

  “Console is clean,” he said. “No damage I can see.”

  “Check for a generator, Dickerson. I don’t see one over here,” Kalimura said.

  He leaned down and flashed his lights beneath the metal console. No generator. Shit. “Not here either, Corporal.”