by Shane Black
“What have we got, ma’am?” a young Strike Sergeant who couldn’t have been older than 20 asked.
“Two dozen. Armed. Not sure why they picked Deck Four or how they got aboard but there you have it. Communications are–”
Hawkins’ commlink beeped.
“Bridge.”
“Get me the Officer of the Watch!”
“Commander Pierce has the conn. Report.”
“Intruders, Deck Four! Exeter First Marines engaging! Hawkins out!”
The sergeant pulled the bolt on his TK40.
“What’s the word, ma’am?”
Hawkins glared past the wide contusion on the left side of her face, still trying to catch her breath. “Get those bastards off my ship, Sergeant.”
The young marine hefted his shock rifle and grinned.
“Yes ma’am.”
Thirty-Nine
Lunar emerged from Survey Station Nineteen’s jamming field just in time to hear DSS Exeter’s sitrep. Constellation and Minstrel were already veering in the chunky little destroyer’s direction to provide screening and protection from any potentially hostile vessels.
The minibot’s sensors did not have the range of the larger ships, but Lunar was able to verify there were no hostile contacts in his command area. For now.
He added himself to the Perseus datanet and requested instructions from the Force Command battle computer. He was directed to establish contact with Exeter, relay his message and then join Exeter’s escort formation.
So that’s exactly what he did.
Exeter’s communications officer shouted over the overlapping orders and general urgency on the bridge.
“I have a priority message from Commander, Task Force Perseus!”
There was near-instant silence.
“Say again?”
“It’s from Commander Hunter!”
“On screen!” Pierce ordered. The comms officer switched displays and Jayce Hunter appeared on the Exeter’s main viewer.
“This is Hunter on Survey Station Nineteen. My minibots have engaged intruders near records storage. We have wounded. I need Exeter squads two and four and an emergency medical team to board this station and relieve our landing party immediately. All ships to battle stations, intruder protocols. I want a hard perimeter around Station Nineteen at five hundred miles. Unidentified ships get one warning. Hunter out.”
The Exeter bridge went to work with the quiet, smooth efficiency Skywatch was known for. In a matter of moments, orders had been coded and received by the Exeter First Marines, and assault ships were powering up their engines.
It just so happened this was all taking place during a brutal firefight on Exeter’s Deck Four.
“Sooner!”
Lieutenant Hawkins climbed past a grim-faced squad of heavily armed marines and ran up to the man she had originally come to Deck Four to see.
“Brittany! What the hell are you doing here? This place is a shooting gallery! What happened?!” She always got a flutter when she saw that tough face change into a look of tender concern for her. Sooner guided her in to a small out-of-the-way room to avoid the quick-moving security details filling the cross-corridor outside.
“Your face is bruise–” The moment the door closed, she reached up and hugged his neck and kissed him desperately, then they embraced tightly and she sighed.
“I was so worried you would run out a door at the wrong time!” she gushed, eyes closed.
“You’re not going to tell me why your face is bruised, are you?”
“Nope.”
Gunnery Sergeant Jack “Sooner” Daly held Hawkins and stroked her hair. Times like this were always hard on the two young Skywatch leaders. Their whirlwind affair had begun at the Academy, where Daly had been a hand-to-hand combat instructor. In the six weeks between Hawkins’ graduation and her official acceptance of an officer’s commission, falling in love with her martial arts instructor was technically not against regulations.
The two lovers found themselves assigned to the same ship not long after. Their professional relationship only made things more awkward since technically she now outranked him. There was also the small matter of officers and Gunnery Sergeants being prohibited from fraternizing.
“You need to get out of here and someplace safe.”
“I’m accompanying the team down to the station,” she replied. He took a breath to answer and she put her fingers on his lips. “No arguments this time, baby. I think I know what the intruders are after and I need to be on that station and get the Commander to green-light my theory. Just get me a tac-suit and a power pack for my weapon.”
“It will interfere with my squad.”
“And why is that?”
“Because my squad’s sergeant is going to be too distracted trying to keep the lieutenant from getting shot.”
“Well, the sergeant’s just going to have to rationalize that decision with two things. One, you don’t have a choice and two, the lieutenant is going to be making sure the sergeant doesn’t get shot.”
“You know I love you, Brit.”
She beamed.
“But one of these days, you’re gonna get it.”
“After we take care of business, Sergeant Daly.”
“Gunnery Sergeant, ma’am.”
“Yeah.”
They kissed again.
Forty
“When Hearts said this thing was deserted, she wasn’t kidding,” Lucas Moody said. The only illumination in the Dunkerque airlock was from the Argent Marines and their helmet lights.
“Yili–?”
“I’m on it, sir.” The engineer pulled one of the junction boxes loose and patched in her diagnostic unit. “Reactors operating at mass maintenance temperature only, sir. Just enough to emit a signature, but not enough to produce excess power. All energy damps are in. Vessel is operating on battery power only. Life support is down. Air temperature minus two one zero. No oxygen content. All systems off-line.”
“Battery status?” Hunter asked, a tone of annoyance already creeping in.
“Seventeen percent and stable. Makes sense. There’s nothing running on this vessel.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, colonel?” Hunter was busy training his lights on the bulkheads and ceilings, checking for structural damage.
“There are atmospheric compounds in this ship incompatible with human life. Five percent of the gas mixture here is sulfuric acid. I’m also reading bromine crystals.”
“Will that affect our tac suits, engineer?”
“Negative, as long as you keep your anti-static and temperature fields up, your suits will repel all non-ionized elements in the atmosphere,” Yili replied.
“It shouldn’t affect communications either,” Zony added. “I recommend we stay off the intraship until we secure engineering and the bridge.”
“Good call, Lieutenant,” Hunter replied.
“Where would elements like that come from?” Moody asked.
“Unknown. Bromine is used as a sealant in high-pressure lamp assemblies. The sulfuric acid could be coming from anywhere,” Yili said.
“Colonel, run a life signs check again.” Hunter said. The Captain couldn’t shake the suspicion there was something about this situation that just wasn’t right. Everything was too well organized aboard the Dunkerque. It was as if...
“Scanning. Affirmative, Captain. I have respiration readings on Deck 12 aft. Whatever they are, they’re not breathing oxygen.”
A shudder swept through the boarding party’s marine contingent. Some of the men clutched their weapons tighter.
“How many?”
“At least a dozen, possibly more. Volume and temperature readings indicate alien life forms in the 300-pound range.”
“Hunter to Argent.”
Nothing.
The Captain activated his commlink’s permanent connection to T-Hawk Eight. The signal was not returned.
“What the hell–?” Hunter looked out the airlock’s port. Ther
e was nothing visible on the Dunkerque’s starboard side. In fact, the stars were completely different than Hunter remembered them.
“We’re not in Gitairn any more.”
“What?” Moody asked, checking the port nearest him. “Where is Argent?”
“A better question colonel is where are we?”
Just then, the thrum of approaching footsteps echoed outside the airlock.
Captain Hunter hefted his weapon, set the power output to maximum and pulled the bolt. He spoke calmly and efficiently.
“Weapons free, ladies and gentlemen, maximum power amplification. Target anything not wearing an Argent insignia. Fire at will.”
Every order was by the book. In fact, the orders were issued in the recommended order from the book. The Argent marine squad quietly and quickly configured their equipment and engaged their tac-suit magnetic and power deflectors. Colonel Moody was as impressed as anyone else in the squad.
Jason Hunter had made a career out of seat-of-the-pants decision-making, but it always seemed when the time came to lead by example, he was able to set aside the hip-shooting frame of mind and do things so as to satisfy a regular line officer his duty had been done. Then again, this wasn’t the first time Moo had served alongside the Captain in a crucial situation and it certainly wasn’t the first time he had seen Hunter switch from maverick to regulation Skywatch.
Yili had stowed her engineering equipment and had a heavy blaster in each hand. Zony was equally well-armed, except she settled for a single pistol. For a few moments, the sound outside stopped. The Argent landing party waited and listened. Only the hum from their equipment’s power packs was audible. Even their highly sensitive Triple-S antenna were silent. There was simply nothing inside or outside the room to translate into audio-visual or tactile information.
Still they waited.
Hunter watched the tiny chronometer he had set. Twenty-six seconds had passed since the sound had stopped. There were no other anomalous readings of any kind. Things were beginning to exceed reason. Only a mechanism would be capable of remaining motionless long enough for the sensitive Triple-S circuitry to completely lose track of it at such short ranges. Even through a ship’s bulkheads, there would be respiration, heartbeat, circulation, weight settling, weight shifting. Something.
“Colonel–”
It happened so fast no human being would have been able to react in time. A calamitous explosion of sound, metal, energy discharge and organic brute force obliterated the airlock’s inboard bulkhead and filled the room with an enormous dark vaguely insect-like shape. Whatever it was, it had a hard, chitinous shell of some kind. A razor sharp combination of claw and pincer slashed across the chamber, slamming three marines against the metal wall. It’s bulk twisted and it prepared another attack.
Colonel Moody was far enough away from the creature to take aim. He pumped at least nine conc rounds from his TK40 into the creature’s side. Each shot strobed white in the suddenly crowded space. Hot fluids, wispy smoke and broken pieces of the creature’s shell exploded in all directions. There was a high-pitched, dissonant scream consisting of at least a half-dozen different voices followed by a spasm that crushed Moo, Yili and two other marines up against the opposite wall.
Once the creature careened to the opposite side, Captain Hunter was able to pull himself far enough out of the way to move. Realizing he didn’t have room to aim his weapon, he drew two seven-inch sonic knives from his tac harness and raised them as high as he could reach. Using all of his strength and weight, he plunged both weapons into the creature’s shell. The contact blades energized the moment they hit the solid carapace.
It was the melee equivalent of setting off two shaped charges against a solid obstacle. The shell cracked and shattered in all directions. Blue and white electrical energy arced across its back. Hunter held on to the two knives’ hilts as long as he could. The vibrations rapidly became unbearable, and threatened to transmit dangerously powerful sympathetic vibrations into his skeletal structure. Moments before the bones in his hands shattered, he released his grip and fell back.
The knives continued doing what they were designed to do. Once in contact with a solid object, their internal power systems poured more and more energy into a narrow-field sonic envelope carried by the gas synthesis produced from the weapon’s electrical capacitors. The destructive effect was terrifying. They operated on roughly the same principle as an underwater welding torch, producing all of their own chemicals, power and destructive motion. The sound rapidly became unbearable. The marine tac suits compensated by producing and amplifying a counter wave. The knives bored their way into the creature, causing more screams and more spasm-like slamming attacks against the Argent squad.
The creature threw itself back in Hunter’s direction, which freed the colonel’s weapon again. He and Yili opened fire with brutal effect. The TK40 blasted two ragged wounds the creature’s side. Yili’s weapons punctured two of its legs and the muscle structures where they attached to its body. It swiped at them weakly but missed. Finally it sank to the floor, twitching.
Hunter retrieved his knives. “Did you say a dozen, colonel?”
“If we don’t count the ones that just appeared on Deck Six, sir.”
Forty-One
“Attention unidentified personnel. This is Captain Uriah V. Cleghorn, DSS Exeter First Marines. You are hereby ordered to surrender your weapons and stand down. If you do not comply we have orders to engage with lethal force. Acknowledge.”
Cleghorn was well aware of the fact the jamming field likely attenuated any possibility his message was received, but regulations required any Marine assault force approaching a friendly target to make at least one challenge.
Twin boats from Exeter roared towards the cargo locks located in a ring around Survey Station Nineteen’s center section. They were relatively large egress points for the facility, designed to soft-lock most vessels in the 100,000-ton and up freighter classes. Each boat held 31 heavily armed marines in fully powered tac suits. The personnel bay shook and heaved as the assault boat twisted and banked in its evasive approach pattern.
“I need an escort to records,” Lieutenant Hawkins announced. Hers was the only suit in the blue and silver colors of Skywatch Fleet. All 30 of the other tac suits were decorated with the green and gold of the Skywatch Marines. Hers was, of course, one of only three with an officer’s insignia and transponder.
“We do this one by the numbers, lieutenant,” Cleghorn replied. “We don’t know what we’re up against yet. I want to hit the deck with everyone squared away. Squad order, two by two and you secure every hatch, corner and light switch from hell to breakfast. Is that understood, Marines?”
The platoon barked a hearty “RAH!” in unison.
“We need to secure the landing party first,” Hawkins said. “I think I know what’s going on in there!”
Cleghorn turned to look back at the fleet officer. “As you were, Hawkins. You may outrank every sergeant aboard Exeter, but this is my company, my command. You will follow my orders during this mission without question. Is that understood, lieutenant?”
Hawkins was used to having the upper hand when interacting with Exeter marines. There was a lot she was allowed to get away with around certain gunnery sergeants and enlisted. One, because she was his fiancee and two, because for the last year or so she always had the option to playfully pull rank.
But here, 100 miles out from a potentially deadly firefight there was one inescapable fact: a Marine captain outranked a Fleet junior lieutenant, and Hawkins had now cashed in her one free screw-up. The look on Cleghorn’s face told her further outbursts were unlikely to be tolerated.
“Yes sir.”
“Outstanding. Rollins, hand me that exterminator.”
A marine corporal who could have easily passed for a starting defensive lineman on any championship-caliber pro football team reached up and dislodged an oversized shotgun from its wall mount and handed it to the captain. He inspected the we
apon quickly and cocked it with a satisfying clik-clak sound.
“Captain has the point.”
A rapid-fire series of communications was exchanged between the station’s security systems and the two assault boats. The Exeter, of course, had all the necessary security overrides as it was a Skywatch ship attempting to re-establish contact with a Skywatch survey station. The docking systems aboard Station 19 authorized the approach of the two Marine shock platoons and set the bay doors to external control.
The boats approached very quickly, only applying their counter-thrusters at a range of 200 meters for final approach. They fast-locked into the station’s approach control lanes, immediately overrode all the safety mechanisms and established magnetic contacts with the outside bay assemblies. Five seconds later both ships had soft locks with the station’s hull. The doors breached and twin platoons of power-armored Marines poured into the cargo bay, weapons raised, sweeping the field of fire. Captain Cleghorn was first to touch the deck.
Not a word was spoken. A group of ten streamed right. Another group rapidly covered the distance across the bay to the personnel hatches. Around them were various conveyor assemblies, overhead cranes, loaders and pressurized containers. There was minimal light, but all of the Marines had fully-equipped tac suits with independent helmet lights and a variety of rangefinding options including infra-red, magnetic and scatter-band.
Cleghorn caught movement in one corner of the largest open area and raised his weapon to advance.
“Exeter Marines! Hands where I can see them!”
A tentative burst of weapons fire answered. The sound of energy ricochets echoed in the huge bay. Another burst blasted pieces of the floor in all directions. Cleghorn dove to one side and grunted when his back hit the containers he was now using for cover.
“Hostiles! Look sharp!”
Light strobed as short bursts of energy fire were exchanged. Given the number of obstacles in the room it wasn’t surprising most of the shots hit inanimate objects rather than their targets. Cleghorn heard running footsteps and consulted his tactical map.
“Six targets bearing three one zero!” He scrambled back to his feet and ran to a vantage point behind the barrier of pressure containers. He arrived at the corner of the stack at exactly the right moment.
