“What’s going to happen next, Lieutenant?” asked Zack Chance. “I mean, what are the Vraxar going to do? They’ve killed everyone and since we haven’t been sucked out into the vacuum, I assume most of the Juniper is still intact.”
McKinney had asked himself the same question. Surrounded by so much death, he found it difficult to focus and hadn’t yet come up with an answer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe they came for the same thing as they wanted from Atlantis – intel showing them where to locate the other Confederation worlds. Could be they don’t want to keep an entire war fleet waiting while they try to break into the ES Determinant’s memory arrays.”
“How did they find the Juniper, then?”
“Like I said – this is their kind of war. You don’t wipe out a hundred civilisations without figuring out how to find them first.”
They reached the next stairwell, each man burdened with sights he’d never forget.
“Up,” said McKinney. “And let’s hope there’re a few people alive and they just haven’t been able to reach the comms.”
The lights flickered on and off at sporadic intervals on the stairwell. Adapting to such rapid changes of contrast was a weakness of the visor sensors and McKinney’s eyes felt the strain of watching the colours shift from grey to green and back again. Mercifully, the alarm siren was muted here and McKinney realised how much it was starting to grate on his already frayed nerves.
“Level 197,” said Garcia, reading the sign above the exit doorway from the stairwell.
“What if the armoury door is closed?” asked Webb.
“All these other doors are open,” Garcia replied.
“There’s no door on the level 197 armoury,” said McKinney. “It’s behind a guard station and there are a couple of mini-turrets. The Juniper’s AI decides who gets in and out.”
“What if it chooses to shoot us?” persisted Webb.
“Any more questions and I’ll send you in first, soldier.”
The corridors of level 197 were nearly empty. This was one of the maintenance levels, where small-scale repairs and refurbishments were done on minor, non-critical equipment. There was no need for anyone to be working here at night, though in a place the size of the Juniper nowhere was completely empty.
The exit passage from the stairwell went to the left and right, curving slightly as it did so. To McKinney’s relief, the lights were working properly here, though the alarms were back up to full volume.
“I wish someone would shut them off,” remarked Corporal Li, evidently thinking the same thing.
“We’re probably stuck with them, Corporal. I’m going to use my suit.” McKinney ordered his suit visor to attenuate the sound and was immediately grateful. He didn’t like to reduce any type of input from his senses, no matter how annoying it might be. This time he made an exception.
“Which way?” asked Webb.
McKinney was denied the opportunity to answer. The floor lurched beneath his feet and he experienced a brief feeling of weightlessness. He put out a hand towards the wall in order to steady himself. The sensation passed quickly, but through his palms he noticed a heavy, low vibration. A sound rose to accompany it, increasing in volume until it became louder than the plaintive wailing of the alarms, overwhelming them with the deluge of its power.
Several of the men staggered and Chance fell to one knee. A chorus of questions flew across the comms, each demanding answers McKinney didn’t have. Something thumped against the exterior of the Juniper’s hull, many levels above. Another followed, this one lower and nearer. There was a third and a fourth, each increasing in intensity as it came closer to level 197.
The fifth noise was more like a thunderous clang and it felt to McKinney as though someone had put a steel barrel over his head and struck it with a sledgehammer. With the sound came a shockwave. It pitched him hard against the wall, his shoulder taking the force of the impact. The wind was knocked from him and he struggled to remain on his feet.
As McKinney and his squad gathered their wits, the shuddering thumps continued on the levels below until eventually they either stopped or were too far away to be heard or felt.
“Whatever the hell that was, I don’t think I’m going to like it,” said Bannerman.
“The alarms have stopped,” said Webb. “Do you think the Space Corps got a rescue ship here already?”
“Yeah, the cavalry has come and they’ve brought a sackful of medals and bottles of neat gin to say thank you to everyone who managed to live through this terrible attack.”
“Piss off, Garcia.”
“Quiet,” McKinney ordered. “I can’t think with you two bitching.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant.”
“We need to find a porthole.”
“This stairwell is just off central,” said Bannerman. “From memory, if we go left along here, we can cut a right and after that there’s a main route leading to the outer wall.”
“It doesn’t take us too far off our route to the armoury either,” said McKinney. “We’ll go the way you’ve suggested.”
The squad had recovered and they waited for him to give the order to move. He didn’t delay and they set off along the left-hand corridor, running two abreast. They turned right after fifty metres, entering a new corridor as featureless as the others. Signs hung from the ceiling every so often, announcing new areas. There were doors to offices and consoles fitted into alcoves every thirty metres or so.
After a short distance, a long window appeared in the left-hand wall. McKinney looked into the room beyond and saw one of the clean rooms leading to the Juniper’s tertiary fabrication area. The place was lit in stark white and he guessed it must have its own dedicated power supply separate from that which provided the emergency lighting.
“The doors are working, Lieutenant,” said Roldan. “This facility must be isolated from everything else. Must run on batteries or something.”
“There might be someone alive in there,” said Chance.
“I don’t think so,” said Bannerman. “The fabs have their own comms section. I’ve just checked and there’s no one making a call.”
“I don’t want to interfere with it either,” said McKinney. “There’s still a crapload of this toxin in the air and anyone inside should be safe from it. I don’t know enough about clean rooms to risk breaking anything by sticking my head inside for a look.”
“There’s the outer wall ahead,” said Bannerman, drawing McKinney’s attention away from the fab area.
The corridor ended at another T-junction. There were five bodies in a pile – men and women dressed in the white uniforms of the fab workers.
“A porthole,” said Webb.
“Yeah.”
The porthole was on the opposite wall - it was a clear lens, about a metre in diameter. Though some kind of trickery McKinney didn’t understand, these portholes allowed a clear view through a hundred metres of the Juniper’s external plating and into the depths of space. He’d spent more than his fair share of time looking through those near to the barracks area. Depending on the position of the Juniper, the views could be breathtaking.
The now-dead personnel had evidently gathered here for a look at whatever it was triggered the Juniper’s alarms and McKinney stepped gingerly across the bodies in order to get close enough to the porthole for its view to snap into focus.
He pressed his face close and stared for a long time in silence.
“Lieutenant? What is it?” asked Corporal Li.
“We’re not in orbit anymore,” McKinney said at last. “There’s all sorts of stuff out of this porthole I don’t recognize, but one there’s one thing for sure – we’re inside another vessel.”
“But the Juniper is…”
“I know. The Vraxar have something bigger. Those heavy noises we heard must have been gravity clamps attaching to the hull.”
“What now?” asked Roldan. “I doubt they’re going to stick us into a specimen jar and feed us worms.”<
br />
“We get to the armoury,” said McKinney firmly. “We group up and we think. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die just yet. If it’s inevitable, I’m going to do as much damage to the Vraxar as I can.”
Confronted with McKinney’s suggestion of inevitability, the squad stirred uneasily. Without another word spoken between them, the seven men resumed their journey to the armoury.
CHAPTER TEN
“CORPORAL EVANS,” said McKinney, eyeing up the eleven suited figures standing nervously at the armoury entrance. “Glad you could make it.”
“We got kitted up while we waited, sir. There didn’t seem like any point in waiting.”
“Good. No plasma repeaters?”
“No, sir. Still, the ones we found are newer models than those we had on Tillos. Higher rate of fire and a bigger magazine.”
“The ones we had did the business.”
McKinney ordered the men with him to take what they needed from the armoury. It was the good stuff – presumably the Juniper saw the advanced weaponry before end-of-the-road places like Atlantis. It hadn’t done the guards much good and there were a dozen of them within their station. They were dressed in military-issue spacesuits, but not one of them wore a visor. It wasn’t the best time to judge, but McKinney couldn’t help thinking this was another example of ingrained incompetence resulting from the troops and their commanding officers becoming too comfortable. It made them easy targets.
“Get what you need. Corporal Bannerman - the comms packs are in that corner. Webb, pick up a plasma launcher. Everyone else, rifles, grenades and repeaters.”
Minutes later, they emerged, with McKinney feeling considerably more enabled than he had before reaching the armoury. He rested his hand on the barrel of the repeater and felt the comforting weight of its power cell. These new models were slung across a soldier’s back, making them easier to handle even though their weight was increased.
What made these repeaters even better was how they interacted with the gauss rifles. If you wanted to swap weapons quickly, you could simply press the rifle to the side of the repeater pack. It would stick and wouldn’t come loose until it detected a grip-and-pull motion from a soldier’s hand.
“Like magnets, only different,” said Corporal Li, familiarising himself with the method.
“What now, sir?” asked Bannerman. His comms pack was active and positioned at his feet.
“Find out who’s alive. The suits can’t access as many receptors as that pack, right?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll see what we have.”
The news wasn’t good. “There’s no one alive below us, sir. Or at least no one who’s got a communicator. It’s mostly personnel quarters down there – they have intercoms but I don’t think they can patch into the main comms system.”
“What about command and control? On what level is Admiral Murray stationed?”
“His personal communicator is located on level 283. Command and control fills a few levels above and below.”
“And you’re getting nothing from there?”
“No, sir.”
“I can’t believe we’re the only ones alive.”
Bannerman raised a hand for silence and listened intently to something. “We’re not. I’ve got Sergeant Rod Woods on, sir.”
“Where is he? What’s his status?”
“He’s way up on level 372. He’s got eight soldiers with him, as well as non-combat personnel.”
“How many non-coms?”
“Ten. Sergeant Woods reports they lack weaponry and they are heading towards the level 320 armoury. After that they were going to try their luck finding a shuttle.”
“Tell him to stick with that plan unless I tell him otherwise.”
“Sergeant Woods wants to know what the hell we’re going to do about this current situation, sir.”
“I’m working on it.”
Bit by bit, Corporal Bannerman managed to contact the scattered groups remaining on the Juniper. His earlier assertion that there was no one alive on the lower levels turned out to be incorrect – there were three other groups, all on level 95 in an area which housed the Juniper’s primary fabrication facilities. The associated clean rooms had evidently been proof against the airborne toxins and given the scientists and technicians enough time to get into their spacesuits.
There was another group of survivors on one of the upper floors, in addition to those with Sergeant Woods. This group was based in Hangar Bay One on level 300. It was commonplace for the personnel working there to wear a spacesuit owing to the high risk of exposure to vacuum. The lead technician was a woman called Hattie Rhodes.
“Tech Officer Rhodes is in charge of a team of twenty, sir. They’re all accounted for, though she says there have been a few brown suit moments amongst them.”
“I’ll bet. Ask her to confirm if the docked spaceships are powered up.”
“Nothing’s working, sir. Everything with a missile tube is offline.”
McKinney caught something in the words. “Does that mean there’s something that isn’t offline?”
“Checking. There’s nothing which she describes as official, but there’s an ancient shuttle which doesn’t run on Gallenium. Its engines are still online.”
“What the hell is it doing on the Juniper?”
“TO Rhodes tells me she and some of her guys were fixing it up. It’s a hobby they have. It doesn’t matter – the external bay doors are closed and powered off. She says there’s no way to get them open unless you have a lorry jack which can lift a billion tonnes. Besides, the shuttle is definitely not lightspeed capable and will take approximately ten years to reach Atlantis.”
“Instruct TO Rhodes to keep her head down until I say otherwise.”
“Roger.”
McKinney was confronted with the uncomfortable truth – he was the highest-ranking officer left onboard with access to the Juniper’s internal comms and quite possibly the highest-ranking officer alive.
“What now, Lieutenant?” asked Corporal Li. “The men are getting itchy feet.”
“Keep them in line,” he growled. “This is a complex situation.”
He prowled around the open area outside the armoury, doing his best to form a coherent strategy on how to proceed. They were trapped inside the Juniper, which was in turn stuck inside the hangar of what he felt certain was some kind of Vraxar mothership. Almost everyone was dead and there was no realistic hope of an immediate rescue. On top of that, he didn’t know exactly what the Vraxar had in mind for the orbital. Maybe they just wanted it for spares. For some reason, the idea didn’t fit.
“Corporal Bannerman, can you get a distress signal out with that comms pack?”
“I already tried, Lieutenant. The signal report shows a significant degradation when it passes through the walls of the Juniper. After that, it gets lost somewhere in the hull of this Vraxar ship. It might be that something is getting out into space – it won’t be going anywhere very fast.”
“The Juniper is running on its own backup comms. Can you tap into them and use them as a booster?”
“That would be a good idea, sir. Even the Juniper’s backup comms are way better than what this pack can do. The problem is, I don’t have the authority to piggyback onto the central comms.”
“Would I have the authority?”
“No, sir. If I understand it correctly, everything routes through the main comms room – that’s on level 285 - and then, in normal cases, out into space via the comms arrays.”
“Could you plug in directly or something?”
Bannerman did his best to smother a sigh at the question. “No, sir. I still wouldn’t have authority. Does it even matter if we get a signal out? The command and control guys would have had more than enough time to send out a distress call before the Vraxar pumped in the toxins.”
McKinney lifted his hands in frustration. “We’re stuck here, Corporal – waiting to die. Do you want to sit back until it happens, or would you prefer to op
erate under the pretence that you can make a difference to your fate?”
“If you’re asking me do I want to go down shooting, or die on the toilet with a triple cheeseburger in my hand, I think on balance I’d prefer go down shooting, sir. Just point me in the direction of whatever you want me to kill.”
“I’ve got a feeling that’ll come soon enough.”
“We still don’t have any way of using the main comms.”
“What about the Juniper’s weapons systems?” McKinney knew he was clutching at straws. He forged on regardless. “If we could trigger those, we might be able to blow a hole in the enemy’s hull.”
“I think we’d have fired those already if we were able, sir.”
“We don’t know it didn’t happen, Corporal. For all we know, the Juniper might have shot down half a dozen Vraxar warships before it got taken.”
“Why did we stop firing, then?”
“I’m just talking aloud, Corporal. Hoping that if I say enough words, some sense might come from them.”
“Yeah.”
“Get in touch with the other survivors again. Find out if there’s anyone amongst them who knows about the Juniper’s weapons systems. Ideally someone who knows how to activate them.”
It was a long shot and McKinney knew it. In the end he got a result, though not the one he was expecting. After a couple of minutes, Bannerman raised his visor-covered face.
“There’s no weapons officer, sir. There is, however a comms lieutenant in with Sergeant Woods’ group.”
“I thought I was the highest-ranked left?”
“A miscommunication, sir. The comms lieutenant in question is currently excused from all duties, owing to an injury she suffered in service on Tillos.”
“You’re shitting me?”
“No, sir. Lieutenant Maria Cruz is on level 370, along with the others accompanying Sergeant Woods.”
McKinney tried to ignore the clenched feeling in his stomach. “The main comms room is right between our two groups. Tell Sergeant Woods to meet us there. We’re going to try and get a message out to the Space Corps and see if they have any idea how we can escape from this steaming pile of crap.”
Inferno Sphere (Obsidiar Fleet Book 2) Page 9
