by Dan Worth
Isaacs and Anna watched the unfolding scene with horror. Even in The Speaker’s chamber deep inside the base, the impact of the Shaper vessel had been severe enough to throw them both to the floor. As they watched, Maria’s people fell back in an uncontrolled rout under the covering fire of the Order of Dead Suns. With the survivors out of the main bay, the doors separating it from the maintenance workshops beyond were slammed down behind them. The horde of enslaved had been hot on their heels and now pounded futilely against the armoured steel.
‘I’m going down there.’ said Isaacs.
‘Are you out of fucking mind!’ said Anna. ‘Did you not just see what happened!?’
‘Yeah I did. I’m not just going to sit here. They need all the help they can get down there and besides... my ship is down there.’
‘You are out of your fucking mind.’
‘Yeah, I know. You stay here, where it’s safe!’
‘Not likely, let’s go,’ said Anna, firmly. ‘Someone has to watch your back.’
‘I love you...’ said Isaacs, with a lopsided grin.
‘I know. Try not to get yourself killed, dear.’
Isaacs and Anna arrived out of breath in the repair workshops. It was a large, cluttered space filled with half-built spacecraft components, industrial tools and heavy lifting gear that hung from tracks across the plated ceiling. They found Maria leaning against the landing gear of a stripped down corvette. She gave them a wordless nod of acknowledgement and then handed both of them automatic rail rifles that she had taken from the wounded. Isaacs noticed that her hands shook as she did so. Ahead of them, the doors to the main bay resounded to the sounds of heavy pounding. Dazed and confused men and women stood or sat around the workshop. Many still gripped their weapons. The Order of Dead Suns floated in a phalanx formation, facing the doors, their weapons primed and loaded.
‘Maria, you okay?’ said Anna, peering at the shell shocked woman.
‘Huh,’ Maria grunted. ‘Guess I’m in one piece. I never seen anything like that. Fucking ship came straight through the bay doors like they were made of paper. Didn’t even scratch it.’
‘How many did we lose?’
‘I’m not sure... I don’t know exactly who was in there when it all went off. Jesus... a lot. What just happened?’
‘We’ve been jumped by half a dozen Shaper ships,’ said Isaacs. ‘The Nahabe ships are trying to hold them off but...’
‘Only a matter of time, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Shit. We can hold them here for a while, but we just checked the feed from the bay and we saw them removing warheads from some of the ammunition still mounted on the ships in there. I’d say they’re planning blow their way through those doors. They aren’t as thick as the ones on the main dock entrance.’
‘How much atmosphere is left in the main bay?’ Isaacs asked.
‘None, whatsoever,’ Maria replied.
‘And those things are still moving around in there? How is that even possible?’
‘Beats me. I’d have thought explosive decompression would have stopped them. Seems not,’ Maria replied grimly.
‘And as soon as they blow these doors we’ll lose the air from this compartment too.’
‘Yeah, they can keep driving us back like that. Pretty soon we’ll have nowhere else to go.’
‘Hey guys, we came to help.’ Anita, with Farouk in tow, had bounded into the bay. She had an odd glint in her eye.
‘I try to stop her, but I don’t think she listens to me,’ said Farouk, sweating and apparently somewhat out of breath. ‘This one has no sense.’
‘Anita look...’ Isaacs began.
‘I know what’s behind those doors,’ Anita replied, nodding at the entrance to the bay. ‘I can look after myself.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I watched your back in the Labyrinth, didn’t I? You ever wonder what happened to Laurence Spinetti?’
‘That shaved gorilla?’
‘Yeah. Bennett sent him after you. I took care of it. At least I... I tailed him for a while, then I told our Nahabe friends on the station who he was and what he was up to and they took care of business.’
‘Well thanks, but have you ever actually fired a gun at a person before? You couldn’t bring yourself to fire at another ship, and it’s a little different when you’re looking them in the eye from a few metres away.’
‘No, but those things aren’t really people anymore, are they? Look, you ever wonder what a girl like me is doing mixed up with the Hidden Hand?’
‘I did, actually.’
‘My Mum and Dad are really dead, okay? I lied to you. Yeah they did run their own haulage business, until their ship got knocked out of its jump outside the Hadar system. One of the Hidden Hand ships answered the automated distress call, but it was too late. When they pulled the ship’s logs it was clear to them what had happened. Luckily for me I was on my way back from Earth at the time. End of the summer term at Berkeley, see? I came back to that...’ she sighed. ‘But the Hidden Hand took me in and I used my parent’s business contacts to help them source supplies. So, now you know all about me, how about giving me a fucking gun, I wanna kill me some Shapers.’
‘Ach, me too,’ said Farouk. ‘I don’t want to hide in this rock, waiting for them to come for me.’
‘Alright,’ said Maria. ‘Take whatever you want from the wounded. We need as many guns as possible once they come though.’
‘Ain’t gonna do us much good if we can’t breathe,’ said Isaacs. ‘There any pressure suits in this place we could use?’
The Blessed Nothingness was in trouble. Whilst two of the Shaper ships duelled with the Uncaring Cosmos, the remaining three had surrounded the gunsphere and were pouring fire into it. Large chunks of the armoured hull had been torn away and whilst the crew struggled to get the vessel’s shields back up, it seemed to be a lost cause. The Blessed Nothingness’s movements were sluggish and ungainly as it leaked atmosphere and reactor coolants into the vacuum. It struggled to bring its remaining banks of weapons to bear on the swooping predators that had it cornered. Before the ship died completely, its Captain dumped the entire contents of its sensor logs into Port Royal’s systems.
A quick search of the equipment lockers at the back of the workshops revealed a rack of twenty environment suits. Although not armoured for combat, the suits were toughened and padded to industrial safety standards for working in a vacuum. They would afford some protection in combat, but not much, and in addition they were fitted with comm. units. The suits were doled out to the twenty most able bodied survivors. Even so, the last two were given to individuals who could barely stand. Finally suited up, the survivors stood in a ragged row behind the hulking forms of the Nahabe, whilst the wounded retreated deeper into the asteroid to join the rest of the Hidden Hand now setting up defences in the corridors and compartments beyond. The scrabbling and banging noises against the bay doors had ceased for a moment.
‘They’re up to something,’ whispered Farouk. ‘It’s too quiet.’
‘Everybody stay frosty,’ Isaacs replied. ‘Find some cover to shoot from.’
‘This place has no other entrances that they could fit through, save those doors,’ said Anna. ‘They have to come through there.’
Isaacs checked his weapon.
‘We’re coming for you,’ said a voice in a whisper inside their helmets.
‘Shit, did anyone else hear that?’ said Anita.
‘Copy that,’ Maria replied. ‘I don’t think it was on the comm. either.’
‘Why do you resist us? Come now, join with us. Let us all be good friends... good friends...’
‘What the fuck is that?’ said one of Maria’s people.
‘It’s that ship,’ said Isaacs. ‘It’s getting inside our heads. Those two archaeologists we picked up at Rhyolite said something similar about the one they found down there, about it messing with their thoughts. Try to ignore it!’
‘You disappoint me,’
said the voice. ‘We could have such fun together. Why don’t you ask the ones who have already gained enlightenment? They’re coming to talk to you right now.’
In that instant, the bay doors were shattered with a terrific explosion. When the smoke cleared, a ragged hole had been blown in their centre, and then bestial figures began to pour through the hole, struggling against the rushing atmosphere being sucked into the vacuum behind them. The assembled humans and Nahabe opened fire.
Figures staggered and fell under the storm of bullets and energy beams. Still they kept on coming, clawing their way across the floor on the stumps of limbs, on fire, slithering on their own blood and entrails. Some had gotten hold of weapons from the fallen still in the bay. A desultory barrage of disorganised return fire flew back at the defenders, pinging off the metal around them.
‘Shoot them in the head!’ cried Isaacs loosed off a volley of shots, then ducked back to reload his weapon. He glanced around for a moment. Anita was shooting from the hip, an almost crazed expression on her face as she fired indiscriminately into the mob. Anna, meanwhile, had taken shelter in the shadow of a ground power unit and placed carefully aimed shots that sent figures stumbling and falling. Farouk fired in short bursts from a steady shoulder position while rest of the Hidden Hand still in the bay had taken up firing positions amidst the machinery and ship parts. Isaacs slammed another magazine back into his weapon and added his fire to their own.
‘Cover us!’ Isaacs heard the Lord Protector bellow from his translator unit, as brandishing its sword arm, it charged into the mob of enslaved people with two other Nahabe who also sported hand to hand combat weapons. Using their sarcophagi like battering rams they flew straight at the mob of figures, knocked them back with sufficient force to kill some of them outright. Others simply got back up and leapt at them. Blades flashed. Struggling figures fell. A pile of dismembered, twitching bodies began to grow around the Lord Protector. The Hidden Hand poured fire onto the snarling figures.
The Blessed Nothingness was dying. As a series of explosions wracked the ship, the Shaper ships retreated from the broken vessel. Before the ship’s main reactor finally gave in to the inevitable, her captain poured her remaining energy reserves into the drive systems and made to ram the nearest Shaper ship. This final act was enough. The surge of energy finally broke the Blessed Nothingness’ reactor fuel containment fields, allowing its antimatter contents to escape into the ship. The explosion from kilos of antimatter interacting with the matter of the ship was blinding. With one hundred per cent mass-energy conversion it exploded the Blessed Nothingness with the force of several thousand hydrogen bombs. The blast completely annihilated the Nahabe vessel and crippled the three Shaper ships that had taken it down. Their melted, shattered forms writhed as if in agony in the void, their shining crystal forms turning blacker as their systems shut down. The two remaining ships regarded their stricken comrades for a moment, and then concentrated their fire onto the Uncaring Cosmos.
Inside the base, the lights flickered and died for a moment as the EM shockwave washed over the base before backup generators kicked in. The Lord Protector and his men were winning the fight. The attack had been blunted by their charge. The Nahabe scented victory.
‘No retreat! No surrender! Death to the world slayers! Kill them all!’ The Lord Protector then bellowing again in his own language as his sword arm cleaved bodies left and right.
It was a temporary reprieve. Something else was squeezing its way through the gap in the doors. A massive, tank-like body of armoured segments was slung between four towering, crab-like legs. It was difficult to tell where the original creature ended and its augmentation began, such was the level of cybernetic alteration. Its turtle-like head was a mass of sensor blisters and lenses. From its belly sprouted grasping, metallic tentacles and manipulator arms whilst from its back grew a long, swivelling, weapon emplacement. It howled, its mouth displaying serried rows of glittering, crystal fangs. Then it charged the Lord Protector.
The creature seemed to shrug off the storm of bullets as little more than the annoying stings of insects as it bore down on the three Nahabe. Energised blades drew lines of sparking energy from its carapace armour as it knocked the three floating forms back with the impact of its body. Metallic tentacles wrapped themselves around the Lord Protector’s carapace as he fought valiantly to free himself, stabbing again and again at that awful, biomechanical visage. The creature opened its fanged mouth wide. Concentrated energy was building within; a ball of plasma held in place with energy fields, which now released their cargo into the creature’s quarry.
A howl of anguish erupted from the remaining Nahabe as the creature dropped the melted, fused remains of the Lord Protector, now immolated inside his armour, to the deck with a dull clang. The two who had charged into battle with him appeared to enter some sort of killing frenzy, striking wildly against the massive armoured thing. The creature blew one apart with its dorsal cannon, the other, it plucked struggling from the fight with its tentacles and held its thrashing form aloft. It jaws widened once more, energy building within. The Nahabe gave a defiant war-cry and then self destructed.
The blast took off the creature’s head. Decapitated, it collapsed to the deck with a crash, scattering gore and shredded alien machinery. The enslaved creatures around it paused for a second. Some seemed confused, like sleepers suddenly waking from a dream. Isaacs saw one woman look at her freshly augmented blade arms and cry out in horror at her own appearance. Then the moment passed, control re-asserted itself and they resumed their assault.
‘Did you see that?’ Isaacs cried out. ‘That thing must have been controlling them.’
‘Looks like the ship has stepped in to take over though,’ Anna replied. ‘They don’t seem to want to let up.’
The onrushing wave of charging figures broke against the Order’s battle line; men and women who had once served the Commonwealth Navy and were now slavering beasts. They hit them in a human wave, surging through them in a torrent of struggling figures.
Anita had crept forward of the rest of the group during the fight, having depleted her rail-rifle rounds and switched a back-up shotgun grabbed from one of the wounded. Desperately she fired again and again at the onrushing tide of the enslaved.
Isaacs saw what was happening. He ran forward, firing from the shoulder, crying out to her to turn and flee. Enslaved dropped twitching to the deck. It wasn’t enough. The tide broke over Anita, dragging her down under a wave of thrashing limbs. Isaacs cried out and heard her screams. Desperately he and the others sprayed the onrushing figures with fire, forcing them back as he charged forwards. But to no avail.
Many of the enslaved had taken explosives from the ships in the docking bay and had turned themselves into human bombs. The Order and the Hidden Hand poured shot after shot into the mob, but it wasn’t enough. They deadly cargoes exploded against the engraved carapaces of the Nahabe warriors, who, close to death, touched off their own self destruct charges as a final act of defiance. A few managed to slip through where they were cut down by the Hidden Hand, the rest touched off their bombs where they could. Isaacs was blown flat by the cascade of explosions. He screamed Anita’s name until he was hoarse.
The end of the bay was devastated. A few lurching, snarling figures stalked among the wreckage. The Hidden Hand advanced and despatched the last remaining enslaved humans with gunshots to the skull. Under the circumstances, it was a mercy. Upon close inspection it was clear that many of the unfortunates had been altered in some way. Aside from the horrible creatures buried in their skulls, many sported cybernetic augmentations: blade-like arms, sensor cluster eyes, armoured patches of skin or razor sharp teeth. In addition, the augmentations appeared seamless with the victims’ bodies. It was as if the mechanical components had always been a part of them. The surgery used to attach them was flawless. But there was no standardised pattern for the alterations. It was as if whoever had committed these violations had been experimenting, testing out different de
signs with each one. Perhaps this whole encounter had been a field test of some kind.
The Nahabe had all died where they had fought. Their armoured sarcophagi, that had once seemed inviolate and had been gloriously adorned, lay cracked and melted upon the bloody deck. Isaacs made the mistake of peering inside the Lord Protector’s armour and wished he hadn’t.
Of Anita, there was no sign.
Anna saw Isaacs’ grim expression through his suit’s visor.
‘You okay?’ she asked.
‘I’ve had better days.’ He said numbly and gestured at the fallen Nahabe. ‘I suppose it’s what they would have wanted, to die in battle like this.’
‘I don’t suppose it made it any easier.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it did. Poor Anita...’ he choked back a sob.
‘I know.’
‘She was... she just a fucking college kid! Oh Jesus...’
Anna came forward and put her arms around him.
‘I hope she died in the explosions rather than be captured,’ Isaacs continued, fighting back tears and failing. ‘I don’t think I could face... seeing her like those others.’
‘Yeah,’ Anna nodded quickly. ‘Yeah, you’re right about that.’
‘She was just a kid. It isn’t fucking fair! Those motherfuckers...’
Isaacs slammed a glove hand against a stanchion in anger. Anna could hear him gasping for breath over his suit comms, saw the tears glistening behind his visor. She waited a moment until she felt him breathing normally.
‘What the hell was that thing, that huge...’ she gestured at the fallen, armoured giant.
‘I have no idea,’ said Isaacs. ‘I think we can assume that the bastards have defeated and enslaved other races in this galaxy before they reached us. See, it’s definitely organic, just heavily modified. Whether it was taken from its home and surgically altered or whether it was grown for the job: well your guess is as good as mine.’
