Derelict: Marines (Derelict Saga Book 1)

by Paul E. Cooley

  DERELICT: MARINES

  Part 1 of the Derelict Saga

  Paul E Cooley

  Copyright 2017 by Paul E Cooley

  Dedication

  For Ron Williams:

  For teaching me to question everything, especially my own beliefs.

  For being the light when I walk in darkness.

  For being my friend as well as my uncle.

  For love.

  Works by Paul E Cooley

  The Black Series

  The Black

  The Black: Arrival

  The Black: Outbreak

  Children Of Garaaga Series

  Legends of Garaaga

  Daemons of Garaaga

  The Dark Recesses Collection

  Lamashtu

  Mimes

  Closet Treats

  The Rider (with Scott Sigler)

  For information about upcoming projects, publishing news, and podcast series, please visit Shadowpublications.com or join Paul’s mailing list.

  Prologue

  The observatory scanners fired radio waves and laser radar beams through the Kuiper Belt. Orbiting Pluto, the Exo-observatory (PEO) had two missions—finding new celestial bodies entering the Sol system and cataloging the larger bodies floating in the void.

  The PEO astronomers and an AI discovered, tagged, and calculated trajectories for objects larger than fifty meters in diameter. After seventy years of operation, the station’s personnel had only managed to catalog an estimated 20% of the belt. They had yet to scratch the surface of what it contained.

  Mickey, the Observatory AI, ran the astronomers’ sweeps for them, analyzed the data, and helped the humans make sense of the belt. When it had nothing to do, the AI continued its own sweeps independent of its programmed orders. It also scanned for laser, radio waves, and repeating light beams in an effort to find evidence of exo-solar life, which it had failed to do so in seventy years of operation, although it had found many exo-solar bodies entering Sol system.

  The AI finished the astronomers’ programs and immediately loaded its next set of planned sweeps. After several minutes, it received a ping more than 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) from Pluto, a little further than the distance from Earth to Sol. Mickey dumped the rest of the sweep program and focused all the instruments on the origin. The ping repeated, this time with more information.

  Mickey compared the signal’s signature to those stored in its database. A fast search brought up a set of encrypted instructions. The AI decrypted the data packet and the program opened like a flower. It executed the series of commands, recorded the results, and crafted an encrypted message. In less than a second, it had the entire data payload ready to transmit. It pointed one of the antennae toward Neptune, fired the packets, and scrubbed the message logs, removing records of both the data and the transmission itself. No human would ever know it had sent a private message to Neptune. Mickey resumed its scheduled sweeps, ignoring the repeated signal.

  Roughly 2.5 standard hours later, the data packet arrived at Trident Station orbiting Neptune. An autonomous subroutine captured the packet, deciphered the signature, and forwarded it to the Trio, the Trident Station AIs. After the message was decrypted and analyzed, the Trio, three independent AIs acting as a single governing body for the station, argued and debated for more than a standard minute. Once they reached a decision, they sent a new instruction set to Mickey. The PEO would carry out their instructions. All the Trio had to do was wait until the humans started asking questions.

  Book 1: S&R Black

  Chapter One

  The chilly and lifeless office, decorated with the detritus of a dead age, screamed anachronism. Captain Eric Dunn hated it. Amidst the antiques, the holo-display proclaiming “Sol Federation Marine Corps” looked out of place and garish. He’d been in this room many times in the past, and each time it seemed to suck away another part of his soul.

  Dealing with executive officers could do that. Colonel Heyes was such a bureaucratic prick, he might as well be the poster child for inefficiency and pomposity. Dunn would be glad when the man’s tour finally called him back to the Martian SFMC base or a cushy post at Titan Station. But for all he knew, that could be years away, and it would be a long time before Dunn’s own tour ended.

  Dunn stood with his hands behind his back just a few feet away from the ornate wooden desk. Cherry, if he remembered correctly. It seemed as though the first time someone entered Heyes’ office, the man had to detail the age and antiquity of all the “natural” furniture. Dunn sincerely hoped the Colonel would quickly get to the point of the briefing, else it was going to be a very long day.

  The private door to the inner office opened. Dunn, still standing at parade rest, didn’t flick his eyes away from the brilliant colors of Neptune peeking at him through the observation window. In his peripheral vision, he saw Heyes linger at the threshold, as if waiting for his subordinate to acknowledge his existence. Fat chance, Dunn thought. After a few seconds, the room filled with an awkward, tense silence. He knew it was driving the Colonel crazy and he’d refuse to give ground to the man. Just hold it for a few more seconds and—

  “Captain?”

  Dunn turned his body in a neat swivel, his boots silent on the Atmo-steel floor. He quickly moved his hands from behind his back and saluted. “Good afternoon, Colonel.”

  Heyes’ mouth twitched slightly, whether in amusement or disgust, it was impossible to tell. After a second or two, Heyes grunted and headed to his desk. “As you were, Captain. Have a seat.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Dunn said in a flat monotone. He sat in the uncomfortable antique chair while wishing he was in full combat gear. Then he could get away with scuffing and denting the damned thing. But as long as he was dressed in his jump fatigues, that would never happen. The wood creaked slightly beneath his 91 kg frame. The sound made him want to smile.

  Colonel Heyes glanced briefly at the private holo-display hanging before his eyes, and then moved it aside. He tented his hands on the clean, sterile cherry-wood desk top, and smiled. It was a predator’s grin filled with white teeth and no shred of humor. “Captain. How’s your team?”

  Dunn raised an eyebrow. “My team, sir?”

  “Yes. Is your team firing on all cylinders?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dunn said, confusion coloring his words. “We lost five marines to end of tour, but the replacements we gained are already gelling well. I expect they’ll be ready for action in the next month or two.”

  “Next month or two,” the Colonel echoed. “I’m afraid you’re not going to have that kind of time.”

  Dunn felt a chill. The look on the Colonel’s face was one of excitement. That didn’t bode well. “May I ask why not, sir?”

  Heyes tapped the air in front of him, and a twin-faced holo-display appeared to the side. The two men could still see one another’s faces while glancing at the display itself. A grey and white space station appeared against a field of black speckled with pin-points of distant light. A label appeared beneath it: “Pluto Exo-Observatory.” Heyes pointed at it. “You familiar?”

  “Yes, sir. I studied astronomy as a kid. I know PEO is the most distant human occupied object in space.”

  The Colonel nodded. “Apart from the occasional exo-exploration ship, of course.”

  He wanted to roll his eyes, but managed to tamp down the urge. “Of course, sir.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” The Colonel’s annoying habit of repeating the last words spoken was enough to make Dunn grind his teeth. The man looked away from him and back to the image dancing between them. “That said, have you ever heard of the Mira?”

  Dunn felt another chill. It was bad enough
being in this grimly decorated office and dealing with a pasty-faced bureaucrat, but now he had to hear about ghost stories? “Yes, sir. Exo-exploration ship. Was on its way to Proxima Centauri b.”

  “Correct,” the Colonel said. “And the human race lost contact with it forty-three years ago.” Dunn couldn’t figure out if that was a question or a statement, so he simply nodded. The Colonel either didn’t see his response, or didn’t care. “Forty-three years without so much as a radio signal.”

  “Presumed lost, sir,” Dunn said.

  Heyes' eyes flipped to him, glinting with something manic. “Not just presumed lost, Captain. All but dead and buried. The project shut down two years after we stopped receiving signals. No one was even listening for her anymore.”

  Dunn felt another chill. “Was, sir?”

  The shark-toothed grin reappeared. “Was, Captain. The project was re-opened this morning.”

  “Sir?”

  Heyes waved a finger at the display and pulled an image hiding in the bottom left corner. He put his index and thumb together and then pulled them apart in a diagonal. The image flipped up from the bottom bar and filled the display. Pinpoints of distant starlight and the aura of the Milky Way sat against a black background.

  “What do you see?”

  Dunn squinted at the image. His block, a cyber implant most space-faring humans had, immediately corrected his corneas to better focus on it. The fuzz around the dots in the picture disappeared leaving a razor sharp picture. He relaxed his eyes, but the image stayed as vibrant as before. Thank you, bio-nannies, he said to himself. “Unless I’m mistaken, sir, that’s a picture of space.”

  The Colonel rolled his eyes and then locked them with Dunn’s. “Can you be more specific?”

  The view slid sideways into a moving panorama, showing off more stars and dots of blue and red. “Exo-solar?” Dunn asked.

  “Exo-solar. Correct.” The Colonel’s eyes dragged away from his own and stared at the holo. The panoramic view ceased, once more replaced by the still image. “Now, let’s take a look at it again.” The star light faded into the background, leaving amorphous shapes composed of different colors. “Do you see anything out of the ordinary?”

  The spectral analysis image looked normal to him, except for a faint shape in the top right quadrant. Its colors didn’t match those of the other objects. Instead, it looked like a dead outline. He pointed at it. “That doesn’t look right, sir.”

  “No,” the Colonel agreed. “No, it doesn’t. And it’s about to look even more abnormal.” With a few finger movements, the image zoomed in on the tiny shape until it was front and center on the display. Once the display ceased moving, Dunn caught his breath. What he’d assumed was just another irregularly shaped rock now looked angular, well-defined. A ghostly reflection appeared in the middle of the strange image.

  Dunn whistled. “That’s a ship,” he said. The chill he’d felt before evaporated into a frenzy of thoughts. “You’re saying that’s Mira.”

  The Colonel looked disappointed for a moment and then smiled. “Yes, Captain. That’s Mira.”

  “Not possible,” Dunn said. “That’s just not possible.”

  Heyes grinned. “Not only is it possible, Captain, it’s been confirmed. The Pluto Exo-Observatory has been monitoring that shape for over a week now, using every instrument they have on board. According to the PEO AI, that little bit of brightness there is a reflection of Pluto’s light off the ship’s surface. I personally don’t believe its conclusions. Nor does the Trio.”

  “Damn,” Dunn whispered. He opened his mouth to curse again, and then remembered where he was and whom he was speaking to. He glanced at the Colonel’s frown. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Don’t mention it, Captain. I felt the same way when I first saw it. I didn’t believe it either.”

  “Sir? Have we tried to make contact?”

  Heyes leaned back in his chair. “After the data packets were sent to the Sol Federation Government, the AIs had a little meeting of the quantum brains and confirmed that it’s the Mira. Since then, the PEO has attempted contact of every kind. They were given all the schematics for Mira’s communication arrays, frequencies, and the like, and began beaming messages. There’s been no response.”

  “No response,” Dunn echoed. “What about a distress beacon?”

  The Colonel leaned forward again, his hands tenting at the desk’s far edge. “I was wondering when you’d ask that. Yes, the beacon is in fact operating.”

  “Then why didn’t they pick it up sooner, sir?”

  “Simple,” Heyes said. “No one was listening for it. That ship left Neptune fifty-four years ago and didn’t exit Sol system until four years later. Its beacons and communications are outside the normally used frequencies so its packets wouldn’t be missed with all the noise from other stations and ship traffic. Once the project was shut down, no one was listening. Period.”

  “But Pluto heard her.”

  “Yes,” Heyes said. “Pluto’s hearing her now. We don’t know how long she’s been sitting at the Kuiper Belt’s edge or where the hell she came from. But she’s back.”

  “Too far away to determine life signs,” Dunn said to himself.

  “Far too far,” Heyes agreed. Dunn looked up at him in embarrassment, but the Colonel didn’t seem frustrated or surprised at his statement. “No transmissions, no emissions, nothing. Mira’s beacon is all we have as proof that anything still works on the ship.”

  Dunn crossed his arms as he continued staring at the image. “Amazing,” he said. “Never thought I’d hear of that ship again, apart from the conspiracy holos.”

  Heyes allowed himself a single laugh before his face tightened once again into a constipated expression. “Yes. Apart from the conspiracies. Of which there seem to be millions.” He turned his head slightly to regard the image. “And that brings us to the problem.”

  “Problem, sir?”

  “Yes, the problem, Captain. She’s adrift in the Kuiper Belt, but she’s still moving further into the Sol system. The AIs calculate she has a better than fifty percent chance of either colliding with one of the larger bodies, or simply breaking up from a storm of Kuiper Belt ice. So we need to bring her back.”

  Now he understood why the Colonel had sent for him. He also knew why Heyes had asked about his team. “When do we leave, sir?”

  Chapter Two

  The team was finally learning to work together. About fucking time, Taulbee thought. He could get Gunny Cartwright to run their asses off around the shipyard’s outer decking. He could break them up into squad formations and have them fight off imaginary enemies until reveille sounded the next morning. He could run simulation after simulation. But it didn’t matter. They could pass all those tests, but that didn’t mean the teamwork was where it needed to be. Teamwork required trust. And fresh meat simply didn’t have the same level of trust as marines who had bled together.

  Taulbee clung to the wall, his magnetized boots and gloves keeping him anchored. The dome, dark as deep space and completely silent, might as well have been bathed in sunlight through Taulbee’s HUD.

  Each squad consisted of two fireteams with a pair of marines in each team. Their leaders, Corporal Kalimura and Gunny Cartwright, hung from the dome walls on opposite sides, their attention focused on their squads. The training mission was simple: Kalimura’s squad had to eliminate Gunny’s, and vice versa, with the squad leader providing tactics and strategy over the comms to their units.

  Chatter filled his headset, although the voices of the squads were muted compared to Gunny Cartwright’s constant bellowing at his two fireteams and Kalimura following suit with hers. The eight men and women floating in the center of the ring ducked behind obstacles, their suit jets allowing them to change attitude and direction at will. Each squad member carried a practice flechette rifle and a sidearm. Apart from that, they were defenseless. In a real combat situation, additional equipment and weapons would be available, but Cartwright felt it was importan
t for the squads to be prepared for low resources. Taulbee couldn’t agree more.

  As he expected, Cartwright’s fireteams had already out-maneuvered Kalimura’s and were heading in for the kill. Metal wreckage from a mock ship-crash littered the dome. The remaining intact fuselage, moored by weak magnetic fields, floated more than three meters from the dome’s floor.

  While one of Cartwright’s fireteams crawled through the bent and twisted superstructure, their magnetized boots and gloves keeping them moored to the fuselage, the other fireteam approached from the port side using the remains of the engines for cover. Kalimura had made the mistake of ordering her squad to split up across the ship, one fireteam approaching the far port side while the other alternately crawled and floated to starboard.

  Taulbee shook his head. They should be better than this, he thought. Especially Kalimura. The young marine was leading her squad into a deadly trap. He could stop the exercise so that he and Cartwright could correct the mistake, but Kalimura and the other marines wouldn’t learn. You never learn until you’re hurt. He switched to a private channel. “Gunny?”

  “Sir?” Cartwright’s gravelly voice answered.

  “You have weapons control?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Taulbee grinned. “Change the flechettes from mark to paralyze.”

  There was a pause. When Cartwright spoke again, Taulbee heard an evil smile lurking in the sergeant’s voice. “Aye, sir. Paralyze, not mark.” Pause. “Done.”

  “Continue,” Taulbee said. For most training exercises, the rifles fired inert flechette rounds that simply painted the suits. With the rounds set to paralyze, anyone hit with a flechette was in for a bad time.

  “Aye, sir.”

  The lieutenant looked across the dome and found Cartwright staring down at the arena. The sergeant, ever confident, hung by a single mag boot, his body floating nearly horizontal. Taulbee couldn’t wait to see the holo of this little death match, but first, it had to play out like he knew it would.